


A Bridge of Silver Wings

by waywardlights



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Serious Canon divergence, if you're looking for anything remotely related to canon this is not the fic for you, make no mistake--this is pure self-indulgence, timelines have been rearranged and character arcs have been rewritten
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2020-07-09 00:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19878523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardlights/pseuds/waywardlights
Summary: Nova, Freelancer Foxtrot 13, Agent Colorado--Erin O'Connor has been known by many names, all of them earned in times of war. When the Mother of Invention crashes, and Project Freelancer shatters, it leaves the wayward agent at an impasse, and none of those old names fit--suddenly the war she has been fighting no longer exists, and she must become someone new to survive.Fate and desperation bring her to the city of Indara...and to three mercenaries who war's stubborn grasp has not released just yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a long intro--I apologize in advance.
> 
> I wrote this fic three years ago, in September of 2016, and have gotten to a point where I'm brave enough to post it publicly--it was a labor of love, and a cathartic fic to write, but I'm aware that it won't suit everyone's tastes. On that point, this longfic, as mentioned in the tags above, does not follow any canon storyline, though some elements have been borrowed from seasons 11-13, as well as the mercenary episodes of season 14, and is heavily OC-centric. There will be no mention of any core characters from prior seasons aside from mentions of Freelancer agents.
> 
> There's a lot to unpack with this fic, and I welcome questions or concerns.

Erin had always wondered what it felt like to be dead.

She wondered if it was like this--empty space, all around, the vague feeling of existing but not being present in the universe at large. She wondered, briefly, as she got that very sensation, if she was actually, truly dead. She’d been close enough to it so many times before, she felt she would’ve known.

Then she drew in a breath, began to cough and choke, and rolled onto her hands and knees, yanking her helmet off and expelling whatever had been in her stomach before even fully regaining consciousness. No, the dead did not feel pain. Part of Erin wished she was; better that than face whatever lay ahead.

Her eyes opened, and drawing her gaze away from the mess she’d left on the frosty ground, she took in her surroundings. Snow was falling, serene, slow, tiny pinpricks of white, more bright than the expanse of stars above her head. Flakes stuck to her eyelashes and froze them together where half-dried tears remained. Every one of her nerve endings was on fire, and she felt like she’d just gotten a sunburn.

She felt a flicker of guilt at the back of her head, then, guilt that was not her own, and it all came rushing back.

_ An infirmary had never been Erin’s favorite place, and having rubble strewn across it did nothing to improve her opinion of it. She strained to lift a large section of metal I-beam Washington was trapped under, but couldn’t quite manage it. At least he was still fully-armored aside from his helmet, which either must have fallen off during the chaos or been removed by Wash himself during a moment of lucidity; it would’ve spared him from the worst of the damage when it fell. “Chi,” she remembered grunting out, “power up the anti-gravity unit.” _

_ <It’ll put too much strain on your body, Erin.> Chi warned her, inside her head. She could feel his unease and discontent brewing at the back of her skull like a migraine. _

_ “I can’t leave him. I won’t leave him.” Erin looked down. She wasn’t even sure if Wash was fully coherent; his stare was vacant, absent, drifting and unfocused, and she got the feeling he wasn’t entirely in the present. She didn’t know what the Epsilon AI had done to him, or whether his removal had made things worse. It didn’t matter. Not at the moment. She’d get him out, she’d get them  _ both _ out, then they could plan for what came next. _

_ None of that could happen, though, if she didn’t move this rubble. _

_ Her helmet flashed a warning at her, [AGT. COLORADO: CONDITION CRITICAL] before listing her litany of injuries: two broken ribs, a cracked shin bone, internal bleeding, a partially collapsed lung, and a cut on her neck, just beside her implants, from the knife Maine yanked from its sheath on her own shoulder. That one hadn’t hurt so much. It only made her angry. _

_ She channeled that anger now. Wash stirred, perhaps the movement of the rubble focused his attention, and he managed to rasp, “Colorado.  _ Erin,  _ please, don’t...don’t go--” _

_ “I’m not leaving.” she said, both to him, and to Chi, who was still sitting mutinously in a corner of her head. “Chi, the anti-grav unit. Now.” _

_ Instead of feeling the reassuring thrum of her anti-gravity units, though, Erin felt a tingle begin at her neural implants, spreading down to her extremities. Chi spoke again, anguished and terrified and remorseful all at once. _

_ <I have a duty to protect you, Erin. We’re leaving. _ You’re _ leaving.> _

_ “What--?” Erin managed, but that was as far as she got before a splitting pain made her drop the rubble she’d been holding with a sudden, harsh grunt of pain. “Chi, what the  _ hell-- _ ” _

_ And then she screamed, long and high and stricken, as her limbs jerked without her knowing why or how, and the tingling in her fingers and toes and legs became a fiery burn, pulling on her injuries, pulling too  _ hard--

_ Her fingers grappled at the floor, panicked, the only thing she still had even a modicum of control over, as Chi pulled her torso up from the ground--her broken ribs moved, her punctured lung made her frantic breathing even more shallow, and she felt an additional burst of warmth in her gut as her internal bleeding intensified. Chi planted one of her legs on the ground, the injured one, and she felt the cracked bone shift. _

_ “Chi--” she managed to gasp, trying to kneel down again, “Chi,  _ please _ , I can’t--” _

_ But he said nothing. She felt him, though, she felt him  _ everywhere _ , in every pore of her skin, every cell in her bones and muscles and brain. For a moment, they were not two separate entities, but one, and Erin had never been in so much pain. She thought she was still screaming, but she didn’t know if that was her or Chi anymore. Or if there was even a difference. _

_ She had only hazy memories of stumbling out of the infirmary, and then nothing more. _

“You.” Erin breathed, not even angrily, at first, but shocked. “You  _ controlled _ me.”

Chi projected his hologram, then, a mote of power-armor clad golden light in the black-and-white night. He wrung his hands. “I had no  _ choice _ \--”

“We all have choices, and you chose  _ this?! _ ” Erin shrieked this time, not even caring who might have still been around to hear, as her fury rapidly caught up with her shock. “You choose--you choose denying me the right to make  _ my _ choices, for what? He could still be alive in there! They could  _ all _ be alive!”

“Carolina isn’t.” Chi said flatly.

If the air hadn’t already struggled to reach one of Erin’s partly-collapsed lungs, Chi’s words knocked the rest of her breath out in a rush. “What?” she asked, barely audible.

“Maine, he--” Chi trailed off. “He took both the AI from Carolina’s implants and...threw her over the edge of the cliff. She couldn’t have survived that fall, Colorado.”

Erin leaned back, let her aching, feverish head rest in a mound of powdery white snow, and felt its chill seep into her hair, sharp and invigorating. She closed her eyes after a moment of staring at the stars in their infinite, twinkling glory. In a moment, she would open her eyes, and it would all have been a nightmare. An unusually vivid nightmare, yes, but that was  _ all _ .

It didn’t happen.

“We have to go back.” she said when she opened her eyes again. It wasn’t a suggestion, an idea, merely a statement of fact. Erin didn’t leave her team behind. “We have to save who we can.”

“We can’t.” Chi said helplessly. He was still projecting his hologram, though Erin staunchly refused to look at him. “Colorado,  _ you’re _ injured, too, and my priority, like it or not, is  _ you _ .”

“Get ready for some new priorities, then.” Erin snapped as she fished for her helmet in the snow, shaking the half-melted slush out of it before setting it back on her head. “I don’t leave my people behind.”

“Erin,” Chi dropped his voice an octave, “even if there was someone left, how do you propose we get in? The entire ship will be on lockdown. The Director will want to know what happened,  _ how _ this happened. We’re miles away. By the time we make it...any survivors will have been sent to secure locations.”

_ By the time we make it... _ that brought Erin up short. “How far are we from the shipwreck?”

Chi hesitated just a fraction of a second too long. Erin remembered seeing daylight through a viewport just before the ship crashed, and the moon was well on her way up into the sky’s zenith. Her HUD, automatically adjusting for this world’s time scale, read 0103 hours, and it gave her the name of the world: Synre.

“Several miles.” Chi finally replied. “You...slept...for about two hours after we made it this far.”

“You mean, I passed out for two hours after you  _ dragged _ me out here.” Erin felt her anger rise up again, savored its burn through her blood. She had always been the most productive when she was angry, and its familiar rush brought her strength. “I don’t want to get into this when we have something to do, but we are  _ not _ finished talking about this.”

“You do have a plan, then?” Chi vanished, but kept his voice audible.

Erin cast a glance in the direction she thought she came, torn down the middle. She could go back, just to see, just to  _ check _ ...

_ <Erin.> _

Erin sighed. She knew her options. It didn’t make them any easier to follow through with. She thought about the implications of the Director wanting to hunt her and Chi down, thought about what CT had told her five weeks ago about the project that had been Erin’s home for twelve years, thought about the fact that if CT, her friend Connie, had been here now, Erin could’ve said she was right.

When the Director or the Counselor or whichever unfortunate soul placed in charge of determining her fellow agents’ fate got to a file titled ‘Agt. Colorado, Freelancer Foxtrot 13’, Erin knew they would mark her as MIA with a strong unofficial dash of KIA. They would do the same for Carolina, and for Wash, and for the others, too, because if nothing else, the Director kept a tight leash on his resources, and if he couldn’t control them, well...no one else would be able to, either. One way or another.

The open cavern of the sky above, pinpricked with stars where the clouds that dropped snow didn’t cover, felt too big to hold her, and it gave her the sensation of screaming into a void, with no one to hear.

_ You are the only one you can rely on to survive. _

She stopped one last time, took a halfhearted step back the way she came, then turned sharply on her heel and walked away, though it was more of a controlled stumble as the pain from her injuries flared up again.

She refused to look back, contemplating what it felt like to be dead. Her heart beat erratically, her breath raggedly escaped her lungs, by all medical definitions, she was  _ alive _ , if only just barely. Part of her, though, a part of her she’d thought gone forever with the destruction of her homeworld, until now, died again with every step away from that shipwreck.


	2. Chapter 2

“Miss? I need you to  _ lay back _ .”

Erin did not, in fact, lay back, but continued to sit up, ramrod straight. “I need to talk to someone in the UNSC.”

“And you will--after a preliminary checkup.” the doctor, a thin, wiry woman in her mid-fifties, by Erin’s estimation, was clearly running out of patience. Her glasses fell low on her nose, and she pushed them back up with one finger.

Erin set her jaw. “I’m fit to  _ talk _ to someone, at least. I don’t think the UNSC has anything to be scared of when talking to  _ one _ injured Freelancer.”

Arriving at a UNSC hospital had shown the soldiers were less suspicious and fewer in number than Erin had been expecting, but she was now cutting through a mountain of red tape in order to speak to a high-ranking officer,  _ any _ high-ranking officer, anyone with a rank higher than colonel in the Office of Naval Intelligence, who might have been told of the project’s existence or could at least put her in touch with the people who could help her. It was entirely possible they thought she was off her rocker, and were waiting for the chance to bait her into a psych eval, to tell her how cracked her shell really was. Like that would be news.

_ The Counselor’s psych evals can kiss my ass. _

“They are not scared of you, Miss O’Connor.” Erin wanted to correct the doctor, tell her that she was called Agent Colorado now, but the statement had fallen on deaf ears the moment she’d set foot in this hospital, and she didn’t foresee that changing. “They merely want to be certain you’ll remain  _ conscious _ long enough to speak with them in detail. Are we clear?”

_ <The sooner she starts, the sooner it’ll be over.> _

Erin muttered mutinously, wordlessly, conveying her feelings of frustration and betrayal to Chi one more time, before nodding her assent.

Fortunately, it was a quick examination--really just a once-over to ensure Erin wouldn’t pass out while she was being interrogated, because she had no illusions of what this would be. She wasn’t scared of them, though. She had nothing left to lose except her life, and even if she felt her life was worth keeping--which was questionable at best--she knew too much, was far too valuable, to kill. That was her one saving grace.

The doctor quickly and methodically filled her ribcage with biofoam, inflated her partially-deflated lung, and took some DNA in case they needed to flash-clone her a new one. Erin refused to let the doctor touch her neck, so she was given a pad of gauze, which she raised up and over to where Maine had tried to messily cut her implants out of her head. That had all but stopped bleeding some time ago, but clearing the dried blood away made her feel better.

A glance was cast at Erin’s injured right leg, and then at the computer monitor that had interfaced with her suit’s health sensors. She waved her hand. “I won’t pass out from a cracked shin.” she said flatly. “I want to talk to someone. Now.”

With a deep sigh of exasperation, the doctor swept out of the room. Erin took her helmet and set it back on her head. She felt better, hearing the  _ snap-hiss _ of seals reconnecting. Letting out a deep breath, she leaned forward, feeling the obstructive chill of the biofoam in her gut.

_ <Something’s wrong.> _

Erin sat up straight instantly, on high alert, resting a hand on her ribs as they shifted. There was still a rift between her and Chi, but she had to trust his instincts, for now. She wasn’t exactly back to 100% yet.  _ What is it? _

_ <It’s just...there’s no soldiers in here.> _

_ Yeah, and? _

_ <This is a UNSC hospital. Even if they don’t know about the project, a random person with neural implants and full power armor showing up needing medical attention is...unusual, to say the least. They’d want to keep you secured. They  _ definitely _ wouldn’t leave you in a room here alone.> _

Erin pondered this for a moment.  _ What are you thinking? _

_ <I’m thinking that maybe they were expecting you.> _

Erin had no time to think anything else, as the door opened again, admitting the doctor, and--

Her throat went dry and all the breath left her lungs as one of the only people Erin had ever been really afraid of walked through the doorway.

“Hello, Agent Colorado.” the Counselor’s voice was genial as ever. Erin wasn’t fooled.

She ran through her options, Chi churning unhelpfully in her brain, panicked and staticy, and it began to cause interference between her thoughts and his. She winced and lowered her head onto the palm of one hand.

“Are you having trouble with your implantation, Colorado?” the question, asked calmly,  _ innocently _ , sent a bolt of rage searing through her. She leapt up just as four UNSC soldiers charged her. She might be injured, but she’d be damned if she was beaten by regular grunts. She launched a fist up into the gut of one soldier, and he coughed as she knocked the breath out of him. Shoving him into his partner, she yanked the weapon away from the first soldier before shooting them both.

At the sound of the gunshot, alarms started to go off all around the hospital. Chi’s panic multiplied, and Erin tried to rally them both.  _ Chi, focus! How do I get out of here? _

Erin could feel him  _ trying _ to get himself under control, but for some reason, being inside this small room was making him panic even more than he had in the  _ Mother of Invention _ ’s infirmary. When he took too long to respond, Erin put two more rounds through the remaining soldiers and shoved the Counselor aside--why had he not moved, anyway?--before taking off.

Her cracked shin was a minor detail she’d temporarily forgotten.

A pained yell tore its way out of her throat as her leg gave out, but she heard footsteps behind her and knew she didn’t have time to waste here on the floor. Her suit’s built-in painkiller injectors clicked and hissed as Chi dispensed enough in her leg to keep moving. He was still a tumultuous presence at the back of her skull, but she could feel him begin to settle.

_ Chi. _

No response.

_ Chi! _

_ <I...> _ he trailed off, then spoke again, quietly,  _ <...you need to leave. I’m sorry.> _

_ Sorry...? _ Erin began to panic as she felt the same burn in her limbs as when Chi took control of her in the  _ Mother of Invention _ ’s infirmary. “Chi,  _ don’t! _ ”

This time he said nothing at all, and his thoughts were a blur of anger, at the troops chasing them, at the Counselor who pursued them all the way here, concern, for Erin’s fractured leg and splintered biofoam and shallow breathing, and another emotion, vague and soft and warm, that Erin couldn’t identify through her own pain.

_ Is it mine? Or his? _

_ <Ours.> _

It was the first time Erin had actually  _ heard _ him speak when he took control of her, and her breath continued to rush, fast and shallow, as her heart rate skyrocketed.

_ <Erin, please. Please, just...calm down. I’m going to save us. I’m going to protect you.> _

“I can take care of myself.” she managed to rasp. “Let me  _ go _ , Chi,  _ please _ .”

_ <I can’t. You’re injured. You can’t make it yourself.> _

“You don’t  _ know _ that!” Erin realized belatedly she was saying all of this aloud, and that the soldiers behind them were beginning to gain ground.  _ You have to trust me. _

_ <Trust me first.> _

_ I  _ can’t _ anymore. _

It wasn’t until she told him so, safe in the recesses of her own head, that she realized it was true. She couldn’t trust Chi. She was a soldier, a fighter, she always had been and probably always would be. He had been assigned as her AI to protect her, but he was taking it too far.

She couldn’t trust him to keep her safe anymore. As always, she could only rely on herself.

It was near-impossible to keep thoughts hidden from him, when they shared the same headspace, and she could feel his own mounting horror as the thought crossed her mind.  _ <No, Erin, that isn’t how it is. You can trust me. I trust you.> _

_ You’ve had ample opportunity to prove it, _ Erin reached up with one hand, fighting through Chi’s interference, to the back of her helmet, where Chi’s chip was anchored,  _ and you’ve wasted them. This is the final straw. _

_ <NO!> _ the shout was so powerful that a spike of pain jabbed through Erin’s forehead as she fought through the last of Chi’s thoughts, taking control again, and yanked his chip from the back of her helmet.

And then, things were quiet.

Tucking Chi’s chip into one of her armor’s pockets, Erin stumbled forward, towards a window, and put several shots through it. When it didn’t shatter, she launched a fist through the holed glass, then she fell, not so much jumped, from its heights. Her armor took the brunt of the impact, and she rolled onto her uninjured leg, slipping away into a shadowed crevice.

She couldn’t stay here, in this city, on this planet. It would be far,  _ far _ too easy to find her. Neither, however, could she travel with these injuries. She’d likely die during the slipspace journey or when they re-entered normal space. Her body simply couldn’t handle the strain. She might not have a choice except to try.

That  _ did _ leave her, however, in the midst of a military base on an unknown planet with several injuries and no clue where to go, so Erin curled her lip and mentally adjusted her priorities.  _ Get out of here. Then decide what to do next. _

It was no easy feat. After the alarm had been raised at the hospital, the entire base went on alert and patrols had been doubled. MPs with rifles and shotguns and everything in between rushed from barracks to the hospital itself, which meant they assumed she was still within. Given her exit, it wouldn’t take them long to hunt her down. She needed a misdirection.

On her escorted approach to the hospital, she’d taken only cursory scans of the small base, but pulled up her HUD’s incomplete map anyway, searching for the security station. It would be heavily-guarded, but if she could get in, it was  _ possible _ she could broadcast alerts on the other side of the base, giving her time to flee.

Of course, ordinarily that would have been something she’d have asked Chi to do for her, but, well...she allowed a small, bitter half-grin to curve up one side of her face, covered safely by her helmet. He wasn’t exactly in a place to help her, and she hardly had time to argue about the ramifications of him forcibly taking control of her in the middle of hostile territory.

A heavy, mechanical rumble heralded the arrival of a Scorpion tank, crunching over the gravel towards the hospital’s entrance. Erin slid further into the greenery while plotting the least noticeable route to the security station.

“All this for me?” Erin whispered under her breath as the Scorpion’s main gun angled around, searching for a target. “You shouldn’t have.”

Her HUD chimed lightly and Erin pulled up the map, letting out a faint sigh of relief. She had her route. Risky, of course, but everything right now was. Her right leg had a dull ache that told her the painkillers her armor injected would last a while longer, but they were never meant to treat injuries, only stem the pain until she could get actual medical attention. It would have to be enough to get her out of here, at least.

Erin tucked into a roll from one clump of perfectly-kept hedge to another with only moderate rustling, and the patrolling guards were none the wiser. Just one more roll, and she could feasibly make it to the security station at a speedy walk.

... _ Just _ as soon as this guard rotation passed her by.

“Seen anything so far?” one guard asked the other.

“Hell if I know, man. Could be sitting in this bush right next to me and we’d probably never know.”

The temptation to reach out and snap both their necks was overwhelming, but with effort, Erin resisted. If she’d been up to full steam, she might very well have rather fought her way out. This time, she had to take a more refined approach.

The security station loomed ahead, curiously bereft of guards--Erin realized they must have been recalled to hunt her down, and that bought her a little time, but not much.

It was locked, but that was unsurprising, given that even in a crisis--or perhaps  _ especially _ \--the UNSC tended to take security very seriously. Pulling her pilfered weapon, Erin shot out the lock and shoulder-checked the door open, sweeping the gun’s muzzle around an empty office. At the back of the room, Erin caught sight of the security monitors, showing footage from all corners of the base. Controls for the radio and intercom were off to one side, and Erin searched for a specific row--base alarms.

_ There. _ Red-alert status indicators blinked beside tabs listed as  _ Hospital, Barracks _ , which had to have been set once she’d opened fire. Helpfully, a map of the base with labeled buildings let Erin pick the best possible series of alarms to set off in order to make her escape.

_ First, the armory... _

Sirens blared and abruptly Erin watched the Scorpion tank turn away from the hospital as fast as it was able. Several troops that had been patrolling the hospital pelted hell-mell down the path in the same direction, and Erin smiled, though it was a dark, satisfied thing.

_ Now the motor pool... _

Another siren went off and this time the guards en route from the hospital to the armory paused, unsure of where to go. Someone who had to be a commanding officer yelled something--at least, Erin was  _ pretty _ sure he yelled, given what she knew about the habits of drill sergeants--and the troopers split half-and-half, with one group headed for the armory, one headed for the motor pool.

And  _ that _ , Erin decided as she finished a full scan of a map of the base and surrounding area hanging on the wall, was her cue to leave.

In the predawn light, Erin slipped out of the security office and took one last quick look back at the base, which was in complete disarray. It would buy her time and nothing more, but time was a valuable resource, priceless in fact, that Erin could use to plot her next course of action, whatever it might be.

Once she felt she’d gotten safely far enough away that it would take some serious work on the Director or the UNSC’s part to find her, she sat down in the midst of a copse of trees and took stock of her injuries again.

The biofoam the doctor had administered in her ribcage seemed to be holding, but the painkillers injected in her right shin had long worn off and pain jabbed into her leg with every step. Her breathing was still short, though her exercise in getting the UNSC off her tail certainly hadn’t helped the pre-existing injury--she might need a new flash-cloned lung after all, worst-case. If there was one good thing she could say about her bodily condition, it was that the knife wounds near her implants had stopped bleeding and barely hurt, though her pain was really all relative at this point.

Erin leaned her head back against the nearest tree, helmet on. She’d be an unusual sight on any colony world in full armor. She wasn’t big enough to pass for a Spartan, but she was too big to be an average civilian, too, and the armor would definitely raise red flags either way. Opening her eyes, she accessed her scan of the map and brought up two locations: a hospital, a short distance outside the town attached to the base, a town so small it was barely acknowledged on the map, and the spaceport.

She had to make a decision, before the Counselor or Director or the UNSC managed to track her and Chi down again. She might not trust him to wander around her head anymore, but he had information that both her former superiors wanted, and she’d be damned if she let them get a hold of any of it before she got it into the UNSC’s hands--though even that idea was starting to seem just as dangerous.

She made the choice best for both of them. Slowly rising to her feet, Erin plotted a route to the out-of-town hospital.

* * *

Light streaked across the horizon in a bright, cheerful display as the sun began to rise. Snow had fallen halfway through Erin’s journey out of town on foot, so she’d had to get creative with ways to avoid being tracked. There’d been a few close calls, but so far, she’d made it to the edge of town undetected, by skirting the edge and staying away from major roads. Her HUD told her she had a few more miles to go before she’d make it to the hospital. Hopefully they’d have competent--and discreet--doctors.

Her hand drifted, again, over the pouch that held Chi’s chip. This was the first time in a long while that she’d pulled him for any length of time longer than a few hours. Her head felt clearer, and she felt more  _ herself _ , but also oddly...lonely. It was hard to walk away from someone who’d been inside your head, seen everything you thought of on a daily basis, good or bad or anything in between, and still decided you were someone worth protecting.

It was for the best, she reminded herself, for them both. Right now, she needed her wits about her, and she couldn’t afford to stop and argue with Chi every few minutes about whether she could or couldn’t escape a hostile situation on her own steam. She  _ especially _ couldn’t afford to wrestle with him for control of her own body.

That worried her the most, if she was being completely honest. AI were  _ never _ supposed to physically interact with their hosts--and in many cases, they weren’t strong enough to--but Chi had taken full bodily control of her once aboard the  _ Mother of Invention _ , and another attempt in the UNSC hospital that Erin had managed to thwart. If he was going back in her head at some point, she would have to lay down some ground rules. She was beginning to wonder if even that would be enough, or if she even  _ wanted _ him in her head after this.

As she crested a hill, she saw lights in the distance, about a mile south, that had to be the small town where the next hospital was located. It took Erin another few hours to cover the distance on her injured leg and take stock of the situation. By all outside appearances, the town was small, unassuming, sleepy, and  _ quiet _ . She’d spotted nothing overtly suspicious during her brief recon, and hesitated for a moment, her hand resting over where she was keeping Chi’s chip, as she briefly considered slotting him in and asking for his input.

Her hand eventually drifted away. If she couldn’t even rely on herself for a good tactical assessment, she couldn’t rely on anything.

She managed to avoid being noticed by common townsfolk simply by virtue of keeping to the outskirts of more rural neighborhoods, but it raised another problem. If she walked straight into that hospital wearing a suit of powered assault armor, she’d be the talk of the town in five seconds  _ flat _ . She’d grown up in a small town herself. News  _ always _ spread quickly, and someone like her was sure to be a hot topic.

Then, it became a question of whether she could  _ afford _ to remove her armor. Her right leg had a fracture, and she’d only been able to use it because her armor was compensating, injecting more painkillers as soon as her current dose wore off. The biofoam in her ribcage was still holding, but it would flush itself from her system before too long, since it’d been cracked, and it would need to be refilled, at least until her ribs were set and taped.

With a sigh, Erin slipped around the backside of a building, pulled an empty dumpster away from the brick wall, and pulled off her helmet, the rest of her armor following shortly after. With her own strength, unaided by the armor, she only just managed to drag the dumpster back to a relatively well-hidden place, but it was out of immediate sight, and more importantly, the best Erin could do.

Tucking Chi’s chip into her jeans pocket, Erin strode into the town like she owned it.

Of course, the irony was that there weren’t many people around to witness it. It was early enough in the morning that most people were still home in their beds. Erin was on high alert, regardless. She jumped at every sudden sound, slipped into alleys when cars drove down the main road, but made it to the hospital feeling relatively confident her stealth skills were as sharp as ever.

An emergency room was right up there on Erin’s list of places she never wanted to see, but for a medical institution, it was homey enough. The floors were some kind of faux wood, and one piece creaked as Erin put her weight on it. The attending nurse looked up, a faintly bored and tired expression on her face. “Can I help you?”

“Could someone set my leg?” Erin asked calmly. “Pretty sure it’s fractured.”

Right then, Erin’s legs buckled and she passed out where she stood, not even seeing the ground rush up to meet her.

* * *

_ Cold. _

That was what Erin always remembered of hospitals. There was something about them that made her feel colder than she should’ve. It was the atmosphere, she decided, as she climbed the slow steps back to consciousness. Air conditioning turned down too low, sheets and blankets clinically used and washed and used again, for the sick, for the injured, for the dying. She tried to tell herself to get a grip. It wasn’t like the essence of those who’d used these sheets before her was still present.

When she felt fairly confident she was conscious and not in the throes of a nightmare, Erin opened her eyes.

A nurse was checking reports in the corner, unaware Erin was awake. She shifted slightly in bed, trying to sit up, and only accomplished creating a throbbing but muted ache in her ribs. She felt chilled in there as well--more biofoam had been applied. Her leg still ached, too, but it was far less noticeable than before, and judging by her drowsiness, painkillers were being pumped straight into her bloodstream.

Her shifting caught the attention of the attending nurse, and she raised her eyes to meet Erin’s. The relief in her posture was evident. “Good, you’re finally awake.” she said, putting her reports and papers to the side. “Doctor Salazar will want to talk to you.”

The nurse swept out of the room before Erin could gather the strength to ask any questions. She took her brief respite before she would doubtless be interrogated again to inspect her room. For a hospital room, much like the emergency room, it could’ve been worse. The floors were the same faux wood, the walls were a pleasant yellow that reminded Erin of summer sunshine on white sheets, and there were a few chairs all around, for visitors, Erin assumed, of which she would have none.

“Miss?”

Erin turned her head. She’d seen a few kindly people in her time, mostly friends of her parents who gave her cookies when her parents weren’t around. This woman, though, fit a definition of kindly Erin hadn’t even known until then.

She was short--which, Erin saw everyone as short, being six and a half feet tall, but short even compared to normal heights--with copper skin and dark hair, shot with streaks of gray, tied in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes had crow’s feet, and there were smile lines around her mouth. It wasn’t even all those things that gave Erin this impression of the woman, but her  _ expression _ . She was open, completely readable, and seemed content that way. Erin almost envied that.

“My name’s Erin.” she said instantly, her mouth already one step ahead of her brain in keeping her identity as a Freelancer secret, at least until she learned more about these people. “You can use that, if you like.”

“And I’m Dr. Salazar.” the doctor took one of the visitor’s chairs, the one right beside Erin’s bed, and she tried not to flinch away, she really did, but couldn’t restrain a single, slight pull away from the doctor’s warm, ebullient presence. Either the doctor didn’t notice, pretended not to, or simply didn’t care. “How are you feeling?”

Erin considered the question. She figured her usual reply to the ship doctors on the  _ Mother of Invention _ ,  _ “Ready to kick someone’s ass,” _ might not be the most appropriate thing to say here, in a civilian hospital. “I feel...fine?”

“The report myself and my nurses assembled on your injuries would say otherwise.” the doctor stood only briefly, to take a folder from a countertop, and she flipped through it, listing the injuries Erin already knew she had. “Two broken ribs, some internal bleeding, a partly-collapsed lung--”

“I  _ know _ .” Erin interjected, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “When am I cleared to travel?”

That brought the doctor up short. She paused, then looked up at Erin again. “I’m sorry?”

“When can I leave?” Erin asked, a trifle more impatiently. “I need to get off-world.”

Saying that the doctor sighed would imply that she simply expelled breath, but there was no other word for the sheer exasperation and disbelief that the gesture contained. Dr. Salazar pulled a pair of glasses from her coat and stuck them onto her nose. “Miss...Erin, you said? You’ve got multiple injuries that could have proved life-threatening. I’d hesitate letting you travel with  _ one _ of them except in an absolute emergency. What, may I ask, is so important that you need to leave the planet right this minute?”

Erin fidgeted. “I just need to go.”

Dr. Salazar’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “You’re running from someone.”

“You could say that.” Erin muttered. What was the term for when your former employer stuck AIs into people’s heads, divided his employees with favoritism, their schism made the ship you’d called home for years crash-land on this planet in the middle of nowhere, and you escaped knowing incriminating things about said employer? She supposed ‘on the run’ fit the bill well enough. “What matters is that I leave before I’m discovered.”

Dr. Salazar was quiet for a moment, fixing x-rays on a display and shuffling papers. She finally came back to sit at Erin’s side again. “Erin,” she began, laying one of her hands on top of Erin’s; she reflexively jerked, but kept her hand under the doctor’s, teeth gritted, “I haven’t always been a doctor on a far-reach colony world. Once, I worked for a low-level intelligence agency as a medical officer. And I know you have implants fitted for an AI.”

Erin froze, and she felt her blood chill. She knew her panic must have shown on her face, and was momentarily rendered speechless.

Dr. Salazar curled her fingers around Erin’s--Erin was still too shocked to pull away--and continued, “I know they’re not military standard, and the average soldier wouldn’t be fitted for an AI, so I have to ask: are you ONI?”

“No.” Erin replied lowly, barely able to breathe, trying to keep her heart rate under control. “I’m not with any branch of the UNSC. Not officially.”

“Insurrection?” the doctor’s voice was still quiet, and Erin waited for the inevitable moment the Counselor or Director would walk into the room and take her back into the fold, never to be freed again.

“No.” barely audible, this time. “An outside project.”

“And you ran from this...outside project?” Dr. Salazar was trying to get all the answers, but Erin couldn’t give them, not even when she was this tired and close to defeat, not even when it wouldn’t do the Director or Counselor any favors.

“I did.” Erin flattened her tone, tried to smooth her face into an inscrutable mask again. “And it’s vital I keep running.”

Dr. Salazar turned away again for a moment and moved one folder to the counter where the X-ray display sat, still turned on to what Erin assumed was a scan of her ribs. “Even if we do everything in our power to heal you,” she said as she worked, “the soonest you could leave here is four weeks. However--”

“Four  _ weeks? _ ” Erin shot up in bed, ignoring the spike of pain in her ribcage. On a rural planet where cities were grouped so closely together, she’d assuredly be found in that amount of time. “There’s no way that I’d--”

“ _ However _ ,” the doctor repeated, throwing a stern look Erin’s way, and it occurred to her she’d just interrupted the doctor in her outrage, “provided you can give me a few more details, I may be able to discourage any word of your presence here from reaching the rest of the town.”

Erin chewed her lip, laying back just slightly as her ribs continued to throb. She was out of options, and deep down, she knew that perfectly well, had known it since she set foot in here. If the Counselor or the Director happened to walk into this room right this minute, Erin would be finished. She couldn’t flee, not like this, no matter what kind of rallying encouragement she could give herself in a crisis. She  _ had _ to heal, if she hoped to evade both Freelancer and the UNSC long enough to go into serious hiding. She would need money to do that, and the only money she could earn quickly was by doing what she was best at: cracking skulls.

She couldn’t do that with broken ribs and a fractured leg.

Erin let out her breath in a  _ whoosh _ . “I can’t tell you everything,” she warned, “for your safety as much as mine, but here’s what you can know.”

Dr. Salazar sat down again and listened intently as Erin recounted--sparing some more sensitive or personal details--the events that led to Project Freelancer’s downfall. She told of the rift between the agents, and how it erupted into a full-scale battle. She told of her efforts to save her friend as the ship tore itself apart, the crash, and waking up to remember that her AI had taken control of her in order to escape. She spoke of the incident in the UNSC hospital that had almost put an end to Erin’s excursion as soon as it began, and her harrowing escape.

When she was finished, the doctor said nothing for a long time, keeping Erin’s fingers clutched in her own. When was the last time Erin had simply had her hand  _ held _ , as a simple gesture of comfort? She found she couldn’t remember.

Dr. Salazar sighed again, but this time it was more weary, more resigned. “I almost wouldn’t believe you, except we  _ did _ hear about an independent frigate that crashed nearby, and that people have been seeing officials wandering the cities, searching for something--or someone, I imagine, hearing what you’ve told me.” she looked down for a moment, then met Erin’s eyes. “Tell me one more thing.”

Erin nodded mutely, her biting words spent.

“Why do these officials want to find you?”

Erin swallowed deeply. “Because I was a high-ranked agent with working relationships with both instigators of the final conflict. Because I have an AI. Because I know too much.”

“You were serious, about traveling.” Dr. Salazar’s tone was subdued.

“I was.” Erin replied simply.

Another pause, during which Erin closed her eyes and prepared to hear the words,  _ “You’re too dangerous to keep around, I’m turning you in.” _

Instead, what she heard was, “Then you’ll stay here until you’re fit to do so.”

Erin blinked her eyes open again, in shock, and met Dr. Salazar’s gaze. She didn’t have the words for a moment, and then, a question. “Why are you helping me?”

Dr. Salazar arched a brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Erin tried for words that didn’t make her sound ungrateful, “you don’t gain anything from it, and it puts you in danger, if they find out you were hiding me. It seems like a massive risk.”

Dr. Salazar patted Erin’s hand, then got up and stretched. “Erin, doing what’s right doesn’t always mean doing what’s practical, or even wise.” she gave Erin a smile, a sad one, that made her believe the doctor had more than enough experience with that.

As the doctor left, Erin thought about a ship infirmary, her friend’s stare, the final words she heard from him, in a raspy, desperate voice, when she’d tried to do what she thought was right.

_ “Colorado.  _ Erin,  _ please, don’t...don’t go--” _

Maybe she knew a thing or two about that, herself.


	3. Chapter 3

Something Erin discovered about being treated by a civilian doctor in a civilian hospital where the main concern was not merely patching someone up to fight again was that it was very,  _ very _ boring.

Dr. Salazar came by Erin’s room to make conversation when she had the chance, but she was a doctor and had a whole hospital to keep tabs on. Erin, by her own estimation, was a minor part of that. She’d already determined she’d survive her injuries--the only question now was when she could leave.

One of the nurses--Erin kept forgetting her name and felt guilty every time she asked--started to leave magazines by Erin’s bedside, and while it wasn’t her usual reading material, it wasn’t as though she had anything better to do. She found herself drawn into civilian scandals with actors and celebrities. What movie would so-and-so be acting in next? Would the famous singer go back to her ex-husband after their falling out? Erin could almost convince herself she cared, as bored as she was, but more vital things still occupied her thoughts.

Namely, where she was going to go, and what she was going to do with Chi.

She still hadn’t re-integrated with him since arriving at the hospital, and it’d been days by now. Erin was waiting to risk it until Dr. Salazar or one of her nurses could keep an eye on her, but something in her shied away from doing it with someone watching when she didn’t know how she’d be affected. She also didn’t want to insert Chi into her brain again until she knew what she was going to do with him.

When she left this planet, she couldn’t leave Chi in the care of Dr. Salazar. No matter how much the woman was helping Erin now, leaving her an AI with valuable information--information that the Director would kill for--was asking for trouble, for both her and the doctor. She would have to give Chi to someone else, and there weren’t many people Erin would trust enough for that. Many of those she would have ordinarily considered were either dead or missing, far beyond Erin’s reach.

Her eyes shot open suddenly, right as she was on the verge of what would have been a  _ world-class _ nap. There  _ was _ someone she could ask. Perhaps not someone she necessarily  _ trusted _ , but, well, she was in something like dire straits at the moment.

Erin flagged down a passing nurse, who hurried in. “Do you have a communicator that reaches off-world?” she asked. “I need to make a call.”

* * *

Captain Lana Terzi's life was often lived in deceptive monotony.

There was a great deal to do in the wake of the war’s end, she had no illusions of that, but things had fallen into an almost casual doldrum. Wake up, head to ONI Oversight Subcommittee headquarters, find out what diplomatic issue she’d attempt to resolve that day, and get to work. Normally, such work would be left to dedicated negotiators, but Captain Terzi was a veteran, was considered to be fair, and completely unbiased. In fact, her near-open disdain for ONI’s policies and secrecy in the past was what made them first consider her for this job, for whatever backwards reason. Terzi chose to find it both amusing and ironic.

It meant she was also given a bit more leniency than most ONI officers. She’d never seen fit to  _ openly _ abuse it, yet. They thought she stood to lose far too much for such a foolish risk. Perhaps another reason they trusted her with this job.

Her office at Bravo-6 was always neat and tidy. She cleaned it herself at the end of every day, without fail, and smelled the faint lemony scent of floor cleaner as she pushed open the door. A stack of manilla folders full of paper--personnel reports, mission debriefings, things of the like--sat on her desk that she hadn’t had the energy to organize and take down to the scanner for digital records the day before.

They’d transferred over all records to digital decades ago, but some things had to be put on paper before they could be transcribed digitally. Marines on the front lines of falling colony worlds hadn’t always had the time to search for an off-planet transmitter, or even a datapad, for that matter. They wrote things where they could, and it was now part of Captain Terzi’s job to make sure they made it into digital records, where they could be accessed much more easily.

A lesser person might have balked at that seemingly pointless duty, but Captain Terzi saw the trust in that, too. Information was information, after all. All of it important. All of it valuable to  _ someone _ .

Her office communicator’s answering machine blinked its red light at her as she leaned down to pick up the stack of manilla folders. She scowled. She hadn’t been expecting any calls from anyone until later in the afternoon. Reaching over, she pressed the ‘play’ button and leaned down to pick up the folders again.

When the voice began talking, though, a voice Captain Terzi thought she’d never hear again, she nearly dropped them all over her nice, clean floor.

_ “Hey, Captain. It’s O’Connor. You’ve heard of me as Nova. Also as Agent Colorado, of Project Freelancer. I hate to resurface like this after so long with no contact, especially considering our parting words, but I have an offer. Ready to make a trade?” _

* * *

Erin fiddled with the communicator, an old, bulky device compared to the current day’s technology, but the nurse had sworn up and down it was reliable. She stared into space as she questioned, yet again, whether her reasoning was sound.

She knew Project Freelancer had been under suspicion from ONI for months even before CT had tried to convince Erin of the project’s true colors. A contact within the agency, Captain Lana Terzi, had reached out to Erin a few weeks before the final confrontation that led to the  _ Mother _ ’s crashing here, offering to make her a deal in exchange for information. At the time, Erin had refused, despite everything, a foolish maneuver in hindsight. She’d thought she still had her team to look out for, a project that wasn’t yet a hopeless cause, and a reason to keep those secrets.

Now, she was leveraging the project’s secrets, stored deep in Chi’s databanks, so deep Erin hadn’t even been able to access them all, against her life.

Dr. Salazar poked her head in, and Erin squashed down a burst of panic, stuffing the communicator into the blanket surrounding her knees, drawn up to her hips. She prayed the captain didn’t call back in the next few minutes. As much as Erin appreciated Dr. Salazar checking in with her, she didn’t know if the nurse had loaned her this communicator illicitly.

“How are you feeling today?” Dr. Salazar asked, as she did every time.

Erin rolled her eyes and stretched her legs. “ _ Bored _ . I want to take a walk. At least around some corridors.”

To Erin’s surprise, Dr. Salazar smiled slightly. “I’ll see if one of the nurses can’t be spared to get you some crutches later tonight, when most other patients are asleep.”

Erin was pleased. She hadn’t expected to be accommodated that easily. Dr. Salazar was taking Erin’s recovery seriously--this time, Erin was too, but the boredom was eating away at her--and made very few compromises. “Good. Great. You’re headed home?”

“For tonight.” Dr. Salazar clicked the light down to minimal, enough that Erin could still adapt with her natural night vision. “Someone will come to check on you later, though.”

Erin felt the communicator buzz, and had to suppress her urge to fidget restlessly. “Fine. Good night, doctor.”

Dr. Salazar left, and Erin strained her ears until she was certain the doctor was truly gone. She picked up the communicator on the last alert. “Was afraid you wouldn’t call back.”

“I had to make sure it was really you.” Captain Terzi’s voice was even, and the same Erin heard months before. “You made things perfectly clear where we stood the last time we spoke. Interesting that you approach me with an offer now.”

“Things have changed.” if that wasn’t the understatement of the year.

A pause. “How so?”

“Not so fast.” Erin had to establish herself as being in control of this conversation. “I need to know I’m not being monitored in what I say, or that my location is being tracked. My AI is keeping an eye on the channel. If he suspects we’re being watched, he’ll cut it off.”

It was a complete bluff, but the captain had no way of proving otherwise. There was another pause, and finally, a resigned sigh. “Fine.”

Erin cautiously recounted the tale she’d told Dr. Salazar over a week before. When she finished, Terzi seemed to be considering it. “So the project has hit a major roadblock.”

“With the loss of that many agents, it’s unlikely they’ll ever fully recover.” Erin confirmed.

“Interesting, but I haven’t heard an offer yet. Or the trade you claim to have in mind.” the captain probably didn’t trust Erin as far as she could throw her, and the feeling was mutual, but Erin knew that, as much as she distrusted them, ONI--and by extension, the UNSC--was likely the lesser evil here. They wanted her information, badly, but they didn’t want to kill her for it, to the best of her knowledge, at least. It was a chance she had to take.

“You take my AI and all his compiled information--including the things even I don’t know.” Erin went for broke. “And in return, you pretend you don’t know where I’ve gone.”

Silence fell over the channel. “A bold trade. I’m not sure letting an ex-Freelancer agent go unchecked is worth even that.”

“What if I also throw in the location of the project’s main headquarters, or, its shipwreck?” Erin didn’t know the exact coordinates, but Chi would have them. She would have to re-integrate with him one more time anyway, provided the captain took this deal, and she could ask him for them then.

Suddenly, Captain Terzi’s voice was more interested. “The  _ Mother of Invention _ itself?”

“The one and only.”

This time, there was barely a hesitation. “You have a deal, Agent Colorado. On one condition.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Erin leaned back in the hospital bed, the mountain of stress she’d had about this issue lifting from her shoulders.

“Don’t cause any more problems for us.” Captain Terzi’s voice held a grim warning. “You’re offering a lot, and even in light of your recent history with Freelancer, we’re getting a good deal. If you cross the line again, however,  _ no _ deal is going to get you out.”

Erin swallowed, hard, and pretended the nervous churning in her gut was from the horrid hospital food they served here. “I understand.”

“Good. Where do you expect us to acquire your AI?” Terzi, apparently satisfied Erin understood the gravity of the situation, moved on to logistics.

In the end, they decided that a halfway drop point would be best. Erin scrolled through spaceport flights on her datapad, mentally noting places she could flee to if this deal fell through. She found one flight, from this spaceport, that connected to another spaceport at Anchor 11. A UNSC outpost, but one fairly out of the way. From there, she could get passage to any other colony she wished. After confirming from Terzi that Erin would have the freedom to travel from UNSC installations, they established their timeframe--in the next four weeks, when Erin was medically cleared to leave--and Erin severed the comm connection, letting out a deep breath.

Now, all that remained was to deliver on part of her end of this bargain. She had to get the  _ Mother of Invention _ ’s crash-site coordinates.

What little Erin possessed sat on one of the visitor’s chairs in her room: the clothes she’d worn under her armor, a few ration bars she’d taken from her armor’s survival kit, and Chi’s chip. Slowly leaning over the side of her bed, she reached for the last of these items, and rolled it between her fingers, contemplating the consequences of plugging him back in when she didn’t have anyone nearby. With information as sensitive as this, she probably didn’t have a choice, though anxiety and something that smacked of  _ fear _ churned in her gut.

Letting out another deep breath, both for fortitude as well as the deepest of sighs, Erin slotted the chip into her neural interface before she could lose her nerve.

It was like a nest of hornets inside her head had just been kicked,  _ hard _ , and Erin gritted her teeth, holding onto the sheets with her hands tightly enough she was afraid she’d ripped them. Her skin briefly got the same sensation it had right before Chi had taken control of her, and she panicked for a moment, but forced her breathing to stay even. She cleared her head, focused on her breathing, and waited for Chi’s panic to settle.

He was speaking too fast for her to make out anything he was saying, but it was evident from the emotions she could feel from him what he thought. He was angry at himself, worried when he took in where Erin was, relieved when he felt the bandages and painkillers all around her body.

_ <Erin.> _

_ Chi. We need to talk. _

_ <I know.> _

_ Not about that. I don’t care anymore. I want to move past it. _

She could feel his suspicion, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt and thankfully didn’t look too deeply into her thoughts.  _ <What do you want to talk about, then?> _

_ The  _ Mother of Invention’s  _ coordinates. I need them. _

Erin felt him reflexively think of the ship, and an image of the crashed frigate appeared in her mind’s eye for a moment before it was gone again.  _ <Why?> _

She’d prepared an answer for him.  _ I want to go back, when I’m medically able, and investigate the wreckage for anything useful. Salvage, weapons, data. _

Chi probed her mind briefly, she felt his inquisitive poking, but he retreated, appearing to accept her explanation.  _ <These are the coordinates.> _

_ Thank you. _

For several moments after Erin jotted down the numbers that made up the ship’s coordinates, no one spoke, or thought, and Erin closed her eyes, preparing for a nap. She remembered asking Dr. Salazar for crutches to wander the hospital’s corridors, but right now leaving this bed was the farthest thing from her mind.

_ <Good to see you picked up some common sense while I was gone.> _

It was hard to mentally convey the gesture of a raised middle finger, but Erin managed it, and she felt Chi’s amusement, along with a bit of feedback--his rendition of a laugh inside her head--before he retreated again. Erin felt a faint stab of guilt for what she planned to do, but squashed it. She’d made her plans, and she had to accept the consequences.

As always, she could rely only on herself, and as always, she would survive.

* * *

Keeping something hidden from someone who lived inside your head was challenging, but not impossible.

Over the next several days, Erin had to put her mental fortitude to the test--keeping her plans hidden from Chi was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. Every time she felt a shadow of the thought, she chased it away, squashed it flat. Her plans were made, the deal had been done, and all she had left to do was wait.

More celebrity magazines were  _ definitely _ in her future.

She remembered the conversation she’d had with Dr. Salazar when she poked her head in to check on Erin the morning following her re-integration with Chi. While the doctor was looking over a few charts, likely Erin’s medical progress, Erin brought the topic up as casually as one would the sports news.

“I reintegrated with my AI last night.”

Dr. Salazar paused for a moment before slowly setting down her folder and taking a seat in the chair opposite from the one that held Erin’s possessions. “Should someone have been here to keep an eye on you?”

Erin shrugged. “It could’ve gone worse. It’s just a chip.”

_ <I’m hardly ‘just a chip’.> _

_ Hey, we don’t need her to worry about it. Not like there’s much she could do, anyway. _

Dr. Salazar looked unconvinced. “This is the AI that attempted to take control of you twice, yes? Clearly it’s more than ‘just a chip’.”

_ <I like this doctor.> _

_ She just pointed out the fact you took control of me. _

_ <I apologized for that.> _

_ Sometimes sorry isn’t enough. _ That one came out a bit more snappish than Erin intended in the moment, but found after she said it that she didn’t feel guilty for it, and wondered what that said about her. She felt Chi flinch and retreat from her immediate consciousness, and Erin sighed slightly.

Dr. Salazar narrowed her eyes a fraction. “What is it?”

“Huh? Oh. I offended him.” Erin lifted her shoulders slightly in a shrug. “He’s going to pout in a corner of my head for a while.”

The doctor leaned forward on her knees. “You communicate...inside your head?”

“Well, we  _ can _ communicate audibly, but he can only speak himself if he’s using my helmet’s speakers.” Erin replied. “So if I don’t have my armor, I prefer to keep our talks inside my head. Otherwise it looks like I’m arguing with empty space.”

_ <Not like you haven’t done it before.> _

_ Thought you were going to sulk for a while? _

Dr. Salazar leaned back. “Your charts are coming back with promising results,” she told Erin, changing the subject, “and you should be clear to travel in the next few weeks, which was on track with our first predictions, if you  _ take it easy _ .”

“Can I walk around today?” Erin fidgeted. She felt her legs and arms going stiff without a workout, and even if she couldn’t run drills or anything yet, she could at least get her blood moving.

With the air of a deeply exasperated person, which Erin knew to be false, Dr. Salazar let out a breath and said, “If you’re  _ careful _ .”

A pair of crutches were handed to Erin, and she made the mistake of trying to stand straight up out of bed. Her ribs, still healing and sore, protested immediately, and she felt the biofoam in her gut straining to keep things together. One of Dr. Salazar’s nurses made a move to help her up, but Erin held out a hand, steadied her breathing, and tried again, more slowly.

This time, she stood, and leaned her weight heavily on the crutches. Her leg had been doing better in the past few days, and the nurses said the fractures were healing faster than they expected. Erin sent brief thanks to whatever genetics enabled her to heal a bit more expediently. She still couldn’t put weight on it, but that was unsurprising; it might be at least a few more weeks until she was back to normal, ready to pick some fights.

If there was anything Erin could say about her slow, shuffling walk through the hospital’s halls, it was that she was glad she would be leaving soon.

The people here had been kind to her, yes, and they’d taken a massive risk for her--Dr. Salazar especially--but the whole atmosphere of the place still rubbed Erin the wrong way. She couldn’t shake the feeling of apprehension that’d been shadowing her for days now, that feeling she got right before the bullets started flying.

She’d learned to trust her instincts as the years went by, but this time, Erin couldn’t see the threat that they told her was present.

Slowly, Erin turned and hobbled back to her room, checking every other room she passed as well. Where were the nurses? They’d been in the halls a few moments ago. The watch on Erin’s wrist told her the time was just past noon--lunchtime.

Erin was about to chastise herself for unnecessary paranoia when she felt the knife go in.

* * *

Bravo-6 felt very empty these days. Captain Terzi walked down a corridor only half-lit with her armful of manilla folders. No point keeping the whole place in lighting and other fixtures like heat and water when no one worked in them. Digital record servers were stored far beneath the complex, though, in a bunker so secure it could suffer a direct nuclear strike without buckling.

It was also a good place to hide things. Captain Terzi knew this particularly well. She shuffled her folders slightly, checking that her data drive--filled with the information that would hide Erin O’Connor from the UNSC’s notice--hidden within, was still present.

Server rooms were well-secured, but Terzi was a common sight, and all the guards--posted at all hours of day and night--knew her well. They let her in without so much as a cursory inspection of her pockets. Today, that served her purposes quite effectively. She was sneaking a secret--albeit a relatively harmless one in comparison to what she’d traded for it--right under their noses.

As it turned out, Captain Terzi’s ONI superiors would  _ not _ be the ones benefiting from Project Freelancer’s hidden secrets, when Erin O’Connor finally delivered them. She would take them, crack them, and use them. Anything to increase efficiency, to improve performance. Freelancer had been in the business of getting results, a business Terzi herself as well as her employer shared, and the Director had done most of her work for her. She had a plan, and she’d have an even better one when she had the information she needed.

All she needed was the AI to put it in motion.

* * *

For the first time in weeks, Erin and Chi felt and thought the exact same thing at the exact same time.  _ Blade. Stab wound. Already losing blood. Turn it around on them. Get lucky. _

A long time ago, Erin would have been willing to put her faith in luck, but she knew now that the bold, the opportunists, made their own luck. She whipped around, as fast as she could with a hobbled leg, and used her crutch to strike out at her assailant. The person, a woman in a nurse’s uniform, apparently didn’t expect Erin to be in fighting shape after sustaining a stab wound in the back. Most people wouldn’t be, but again--Erin was not an ordinary person.

Erin used the only other advantage she had right at the moment--her size--and fell directly on top of her would-be assassin, pinning them to the ground despite her struggling. It was only when her face turned that Erin realized she  _ knew _ the woman.

_ An operating room, no gravity, aboard a ship she called home. Doctors hovering around brain scans, pulling her helmet off and making an incision at the base of her skull, opening her neural implants in preparation for a chip that housed another mind, effectively another person. _

_ Erin kept her breathing steady, waiting for the inevitable pinch of pain that will come from integrating another mind with her own. A nurse, dark-haired and sharp-cheeked, peered into her face with a reassuring smile. “You’re tough, and you’re lucky.” she said calmly. “You’ll pull through just fine.” _

Erin used her forearm to pin the woman’s neck down, and the knife--which fell from Erin’s back--was too far to reach, but she kept it in the corner of her vision. “Guess I pulled through a little stronger than you expected, huh?”

For a moment, there was a flash of confusion on the woman’s face before it cleared. “You really think you’ve won?” she spat. “You really think some back-door deal with the UNSC is going to take all your problems away?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Erin reached around on the floor for the knife, “but you won’t be there to see how it goes.  _ After _ you answer a few questions for me, of course.”

Right at that moment, as Erin’s fingers closed over the knife’s grip, several security guards rounded the corner and separated the nurse from Erin, whose back was now  _ seriously _ starting to hurt. Dr. Salazar was right on their heels, and her gaze zeroed in on Erin’s bloody back. “You, in the OR,  _ right now _ . I want that nurse detained until the authorities come to get her.”

“No.” Erin managed to interject. “I need to talk to her first.”

“You were preparing to  _ kill _ her,” Dr. Salazar snapped, but it rolled off Erin’s shoulders easily; if a snap was the worst she heard from this doctor, she’d consider herself lucky, “and now you want me to leave you in a room alone with her?”

“She may have information that I need.” Erin looked the doctor in the eye as she was helped onto an operating table, face-down. It wasn’t an easy position to look intimidating from, but Erin would like to think she could make it work. “Information vital to my leaving this planet and going into hiding.”

“We’ll see what happens after we close this up and stop the bleeding.” Dr. Salazar administered a local anesthetic, and Erin felt drowsiness tug at her eyelids before she fell into full unconsciousness once again.

When she awakened, she was still lying face-down, which, given her new injury, was unsurprising. The skin felt tight and hurt when Erin tried to stretch her back. A quick glance around the room confirmed she was alone.

With a sigh, Erin engaged Chi.  _ You getting anything from the hospital cameras? What did they do with that nurse? _

There was a pause, during which time Erin wasn’t sure if Chi was going to answer her.  _ <That was too close, Erin.> _ he finally said, subdued and quiet.

She groaned internally.  _ Close, but not my closest call. You didn’t answer my question. _

_ <When are you going to stop being so careless with your life?> _

_ Hey, it wasn’t like I  _ asked _ her to come stab me in the back! _

_ <But you can’t be bothered to care hardly at all that it happened.> _

_ Well, maybe when my life means something, I’ll start taking better care of it. _

Erin didn’t realize she’d shocked Chi into silence until her anger slowed its fiery climb through her veins and she still hadn’t heard a response. It didn’t make it any less true.

She knew she’d done terrible things, criminal things, as part of her old plan to rebuild her life with Freelancer. Look where that got her. Sprawled on a hospital bed with a neat, almost surgical stab wound in her back. The irony was painfully poetic.

_ <You didn’t betray them.> _

_ I abandoned them. It may as well be the same thing. _

That thought was her last, as she slipped into sleep, real, natural sleep, once again.


	4. Chapter 4

“The good news is,” Dr. Salazar told Erin when she awakened the following day, “the strike missed your spine and wasn’t deep enough to cause much real damage.”

“Am I still going to be fine to travel in the next few weeks?” Erin asked, as she had every time a nurse came to check on her. She’d gotten the same answer: that Dr. Salazar would talk to her when she had the chance. To Erin, that spelled bad news.

Dr. Salazar sighed and turned around, pulling her glasses from her face and holding them in one hand. “Personally, I’d  _ like _ to keep you an extra week to make sure there won’t be any complications...”

Erin tensed, forcing herself not to interrupt this time.

“...but I doubt I’ll be able to convince you otherwise, and as I said, the strike wasn’t able to cause any significant damage.” Dr. Salazar finished. “Since your fractures are healing well, and your ribs are all but fully-recovered, I see no reason to keep you longer than originally planned.”

Erin let out a deep breath. “Good. That’s a relief.”

“The bad news,” Dr. Salazar’s voice held a tone of caution, “is that the authorities took the potential killer away before we could stop them; our security chief alerted them automatically when the alarm was raised.”

Erin tried to not let her disappointment show on her face, but couldn’t suppress a scowl. “Great. Guess I need to be on my toes.”

“What you  _ need _ is to get some more exercise, before I change my mind.” Dr. Salazar brought out the crutches Erin had used--she was satisfied to see one of them had chipped paint from where she’d used it against the nurse-turned-killer. “If you’re going to be leaving in the next few weeks, you’ll want to be strong enough to do it on your own. I can’t hover over you all the way to the spaceport.”

Erin took the crutches, faintly amused, and slowly set her feet on the floor. “You like this with all your patients?”

Dr. Salazar smiled, small and genuine. “When it’s necessary.”

* * *

In the final two weeks leading up to Erin’s planned departure from the planet, she poured all her energy into as much exercise as she could. She continued to use the crutches for a time, but took breaks to walk without them when possible. By the end of her third week at the hospital, she could walk long stretches without them, and her right shin barely hurt at the end of the day. Nothing that a few basic painkillers couldn’t fix.

She and Chi barely spoke except to talk business--the business he believed would be happening, anyway--and Erin eventually found an excuse to pull him from her neural interface. Her nightmares had cropped up again, worse than they’d been in weeks, and Erin had managed to convince him that having another entity in her head probably didn’t help.

Again, she squashed down the combined feeling of guilt and remorse, stronger this time, that came with the action. She would likely never carry Chi in her head again. In a little over a week, she would turn him over to the UNSC. It was another betrayal, one she knew she couldn’t walk back from, but was it still betrayal if it was against someone she could no longer trust, someone who didn’t trust  _ her _ , someone who had crossed deliberate boundaries, even if he had done so with good intentions _? _

One night, she’d debated with herself about it until the sun rose again, and still had no satisfying answer.

Four days before Erin planned to leave, she left the hospital in plain clothes and went to the dumpster that held her armor pieces, haphazardly hidden in some nearby shrubs. She should have come down here to check it was still here much sooner, but she supposed that if someone had stumbled across a suit of powered assault armor in a tiny town like this, she’d have heard about it even isolated in the hospital.

Fortunately, all the components were still present, and she checked their integrity before shutting the dumpster lid again, returning to the hospital. The walk hadn’t tired her at all, and even pushing the dumpster away from the shrubs she’d hidden it in hadn’t aggravated any of her injuries, even the new wound in her back. When she arrived back at the room she’d called home for the past three and a half weeks, she contemplated how she was going to pay for all this.

Paying for medical care wasn’t something she’d had to worry about during Project Freelancer, but she knew that likely wouldn’t fly here. A lot of time, effort, and supplies had likely been put towards keeping her alive. She had every intention of repaying the debt however she could.

When Dr. Salazar poked her head in once again at the end of the evening, she asked, “Have a nice walk?”

“I got done what I needed to.” Erin replied absently, tugging at her fingers until the bones popped. “Doctor, maybe now would be a good time to discuss compensation.”

Dr. Salazar had been about to address one of her nurses, but stopped and turned her head back towards Erin. “Compensation?”

“For everything you’ve done.” Erin looked up and met the doctor’s gaze directly. “I used a lot of supplies, and a lot of time, and took up a lot of energy. I feel obligated to compensate you for that.”

Dr. Salazar shook her head. “I don’t do what I do for money, Erin--not to mention the UNSC funds our expenses.”

Ironic, but somehow fitting. “Then let me offer you something, as a gift.” Erin lay back and laced her fingers behind her head, legs stretched out. “A favor, freely given.”

“A favor?” she leaned her head to the side slightly.

Erin lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It may not seem like much, and to some it’s not worth anything at the moment, but a favor from me can mean a lot of things. You need something done that’s within my power to accomplish, and I’ll do it. No questions asked.”

Erin didn’t think Dr. Salazar fully understood the gravity of such an offer--usually if Erin did outside work that wasn’t for Project Freelancer, she charged a premium. Her services were in high demand in outlaw worlds, and as long as her activities didn’t interfere with Freelancer’s goals, the Director had tolerated it. Granting someone a favor was one of the best things Erin could offer outside of her entire mercenary fortune, and she didn’t think even that would be enough to pay for all the resources she’d used in the past four weeks.

Dr. Salazar couldn’t possibly have understood completely, but the look in her eyes almost made Erin believe she did, and that was enough.

“I...thank you, Erin.” she finally said. “I can see this is important for you.”

Another shrug, belying the gravity of her next words. “It’s as important as you want it to be.”

“I’m taking a few days off.” Dr. Salazar said, changing the subject, and she dropped a small stack of paperwork in Erin’s lap. “I may be leaving before you’re discharged, so I’m giving you these now, just in case.”

Erin groaned. “I was wondering when the mountain of paperwork was gonna hit me.” as she picked up a pen to begin whittling away at the stack of paper, she paused and looked up one more time. “Hey, doc?”

“Yes?” she paused in pulling on a jacket over her scrubs.

Erin cleared her throat awkwardly. Gratitude was always a difficult thing to express, even to close friends--her usual approach was to clap them on the shoulder with a witty, biting joke of some kind. She would have to take the genuine approach, here. “I just...” she looked down, steeled herself, then looked back up, “...I just wanted to say thanks. Y’know. For not letting me bleed out all over your floor three weeks ago. Or a few days ago.”

Her smile was slow, but understanding. “Don’t mention it. I’ll see you before you leave.”

Then she clicked down the lights so Erin could still fill out paperwork, and left.

For a while, Erin was absorbed in filling out forms. A lot of them were standard clerical info, just in case she needed to come back here. With luck, she’d never see this place again. A pang of regret surprised her. She wouldn’t miss the place, she realized, but she’d miss the people. Why? She’d known them for only a month, and she still knew almost nothing about them.

The answer, when she thought of it, was almost glaringly obvious: because they hadn’t  _ wanted _ anything from her, not even real payment for saving her. These were people that were selfless simply because their morals wouldn’t let them be anything else. Leaving someone to bleed and die when they could do something about it was just not something they even comprehended doing.

They’d helped Erin when she’d needed it, and would barely accept anything in return. Selflessness on that scale was somehow...unexpected, to Erin. Unheard-of, even.

Setting down her pen, feeling restless, Erin got out of bed, grabbed a hoodie one of the nurses had lent her for if she wanted to take a walk during the night, and strode out. Snow continued to fall, lightly, carefully, as though the flakes of frozen water somehow knew the inhabitants of the city were tired of seeing it. Erin wasn’t. She tilted her head up and felt them melt on her face, pinpricks of cold before they warmed on her skin.

Opening her eyes, she caught a glimpse of the wide expanse of stars above. One would think living on a spaceship would dull her awe at seeing the stars, but there was a difference between seeing them from their own level, and seeing them from the ground, where she was small and utterly insignificant. She still remembered the childish excitement she’d felt when young, staring into the sky and wondering what waited for her there.

Looking away with a sudden, fierce focus, Erin turned on her heel and strode back to the hospital.

* * *

The final days leading up to Erin’s departure from the hospital passed quickly. She risked one more transmission to Captain Terzi, confirming her flight details from the spaceport to Anchor 11, finished the paperwork Dr. Salazar had given her, and read the last of the celebrity magazines the first nurse--her name was Annabelle, Erin remembered this time--had given her all those weeks ago.

The day before, Erin returned to the dumpster and found a way to store her armor in a few secure crates, which she then smuggled into the cargo section of the spaceport, putting her old stealth skills to the test. Her mini-mission went off without a hitch, and she checked, double-checked, that the crates were assigned to the correct flight. She’d made it back to the hospital before anyone even noticed she was gone.

When she arrived, it was early evening. Night-shift staff were starting to arrive. Erin had hoped to make it back in time to see Dr. Salazar one more time, since her flight off-planet would be early the next morning, but saw no sign of her in the halls when Erin looked. She pushed down a faint rise of disappointment.

Entering her room, however, Erin found a surprise.

Dr. Salazar stood at Erin’s bed, a small stack of clothes nearby. Erin opted for a joke instead of a serious question. “Coming to do your laundry in my room?”

“ _ Your _ laundry, actually.” Dr. Salazar commented dryly.

“Funny.” Erin slowly sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs, seeing as her bed was occupied. “I don’t remember arriving with that many clothes.”

“That’s because you didn’t. You’ve been wearing the same ones for the past month.” Dr. Salazar tossed a jacket Erin’s way, and she caught it reflexively. “I’m not entirely sure if these will be your size, but they have to be better than wearing month-old clothes.”

Erin slowly unfolded the jacket and inspected it with a quick gaze. If it wasn’t her size, it was pretty close. “Whose are these?”

“They were my oldest son’s.” Dr. Salazar replied, with a distant edge to her tone, and Erin looked up in time to catch a hint of remorse, a hint of sadness, before she looked away again. It seemed intrusive to see the unshakable doctor like that.

Erin had a startling realization that people probably felt the same way watching  _ her _ expressing emotion, too. With effort, she glanced back up, and looked the doctor in the eye. It seemed cowardly, suddenly, to do anything else.

“He gonna be needing them back?” Erin asked quietly.

“No.” the sadness was much less vague in that response.

“I’m sorry.” Erin said. It seemed right, and she  _ meant _ it. That surprised her, too.

Dr. Salazar refocused on Erin again and said, “He died in the war, for the chance to make a difference. It did-- _ he _ did--but as his mother, I can’t say that it was worth his life.” she looked away again, and laughed slightly without humor. “I wouldn’t say that you remind me of him. You’re leaving here to escape your past, though, hopefully moving on to something...better. Something good. Where  _ you _ can make a difference.”

Erin leaned her head back and closed her eyes for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts. “I’d like to think that’s the case.”

“In any event,” Dr. Salazar’s tone returned to something more businesslike, “he doesn’t need these, and you do. So they’re yours now.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Erin opened her eyes and leaned forward on her knees. “For...well, for everything.”

“Lynn, Erin.” Dr. Salazar said, turning a more subdued but somehow more sincere smile her direction. “Call me Lynn.”

After, they discussed only clerical, unimportant things--Erin’s flight time, where she was going, who Erin had given her filled-out paperwork to. When Erin’s watch told her it was past 10 P.M., she moved the now-folded clothes to one of the other empty visitors’ chairs and leaned on the bedframe. “I hate to say it, but I have to be up early tomorrow.”

“And I’ll be out of the province by tomorrow afternoon.” Dr. Salazar--no, Lynn, Erin had to remind herself-- _ Lynn _ said, “So I guess this is...”

“Goodbye.” Erin finished. “At least for now.”

To Erin’s great shock, Lynn enveloped her in a warm, firm hug, but stepped back before she fully registered it. “Goodbye, Erin. And good luck.”

“Something tells me I’ll need it.” she replied, watching Lynn’s back as she walked down the hallway. “Something tells me I’ll need a  _ lot _ of it.”

* * *

Morning dawned clear and cold. Erin managed to stuff everything Lynn had given her into a bag she could carry with her onto the ship itself. She handed off the last of her discharge paperwork, bade farewells to the nurses she’d seen the most of, and walked out of the hospital for the final time.

It was a short walk to the spaceport. Erin’s boots crunched on the leftover snow from the night before. Some of it was already melted, promising a change in temperature from the brutal cold and ice. Upon arrival, Erin was almost certain something would go wrong. She checked her bags for the fifth time, made sure her pass, clothes, and Chi’s chip were still stored securely in its pouches. She didn’t let her shoulders relax or the breath leave her lungs until she set foot on the ship that would take her off-planet.

Slipspace jumps were never pleasant, and Erin swallowed down her nausea as the ship departed normal space. She’d forced herself not to look back at the colony world where she’d spent the last month languishing in a hospital bed. Looking back only ever decreased the chances of leaving. Nothing would stop Erin this time, though. She had nothing left, no friends to help her, no real plan, just a stubborn will to live that nothing in this galaxy, thus far, had been able to extinguish.

She caught a glimpse of the stars one more time as the ship entered slipspace, bright white lights against inky velvet emptiness, and left the past where it lay.


	5. Chapter 5

_ WELCOME TO ANCHOR 11. _

That was the first thing Erin saw after departing the passenger freighter, on a scrolling sign just outside the airlock. It was a very clinical greeting to a very dismal and clinical place, Erin thought. Very fitting.

She wasn’t the only one in plain civilian clothes, but of the few who were as well, it was clear Erin was cut from a different cloth, no pun intended, she thought to herself with a wry grin. The other civilians from the ship were wearing older clothes, with old stains and dirt. Refugees, if she had to guess, from worlds formerly cut off from UNSC contact during the war.

She shouldered her bag more securely and looked for the access corridor Captain Terzi had directed her to, splitting off from the bulk of the crowd to slip away before the security guards caught sight of her. Erin doubted the captain would risk meeting her in person, but she’d been told of the secure drop location she was to leave Chi’s chip in.

Only red maintenance lighting was active down this corridor. When Erin rapped on a single panel with her knuckles, she heard only hollow noise behind it. No machinery, no venting systems for oxygen, nothing. That had to be the one. Getting her fingers underneath the seam, she lifted, and the plate came away easily.

Rifling through her bag, Erin found the tiny wafer that held Chi’s collective consciousness and personality, looking at it thoughtfully. She was hit with a sudden wave of remorse.  _ What am I doing? _

Memories came, unbidden: Chi waking her up when her nightmares immobilized even her screams, merging with her thoughts so completely during training sessions there were rumors they were the most successful implanted pair on the leaderboard. She remembered their casual banter, and their frequent arguments, and the increase in friction between them after the Longshore mission, when CT had been killed. She remembered the way he had forcibly taken control of her twice when they’d warred for control in her brain, and the unfiltered agony it brought her. For the first time in nearly two weeks, Erin was wracked with indecision.

_ He betrayed you first. As always, you can only look out for yourself. _

Her resolve stiffened, and Erin set Chi’s chip inside the panel, replacing it securely, and strode rapidly down the hall, refusing to look back.

From here, she had to decide where to go. Another small colony world was tempting, but after how easily she’d almost been tracked and killed while in the hospital on Synre, she ultimately decided that wasn’t a good idea. So, somewhere just the opposite. Big cities, skyscrapers, large crowds. As much as Erin disliked all those things, she disliked being killed much more. The CAA Factbook had plenty of suggestions for her, but it was still in the process of being updated with worlds destroyed by the Covenant.

In the end, she began skimming the ‘status’ section, not even looking at colony names, until she found one that said ‘active’.

Cascade. Indara was its capital, with several other large cities close by. Good enough.

Erin sent a microburst message to Captain Terzi, informing her the chip had been dropped off, and that she’d found a world she intended to lie low in for a while, but distinctly not mentioning the name of the world. Shutting off the transmitter, Erin rejoined the crowds approaching the outbound vessels, and searched for one that would take her to Cascade.

Civilian transport vessels were out. The soonest departure to Cascade was almost two weeks from now. That was when Erin began to ask around to merchant captains. The first few laughed her away, and she had to resist the strong and almost instinctive impulse to put her fist through their smug grins. After, she began negotiating. She offered protection, credits, anything she could think of, but was waved off time and again.

Stowing away was a last resort, but as Erin watched several ships leaving, she knew she probably didn’t have much of a choice at this point. She made a quick list of all the ships still in port that were heading for Cascade, and found one that was departing in a few hours. That would give her enough time to sneak the secure crates that held her armor aboard. Moving them got difficult towards the end, and it was even more difficult to do it without being seen, but in the end, it was managed, and Erin shoved the last crate into the storage compartment of the merchant vessel as it began to make final flight checks.

Stowing away on a merchant vessel was a toss-up of luck. Some vessels depressurized storage sections to save oxygen for their journeys, but some kept the sections oxygenated to preserve certain goods. Erin wedged herself into an airlock and waited to see which it would be. Worst came to worst, she would dive into the crew quarters and hide under a bunk bed for the remainder of the trip.

She felt a subtle vertigo in her gut as the ship moved, rotating into position for a slipspace departure. Nausea rose up, stronger than on the civilian vessel--ships like this were rarely built for comfort, after all--and the ship jumped.

No air left the compartment, so Erin sighed with relief and leaned against several cargo crates. She’d be able to stay here after all. Unfortunately, she’d have to take care not to fall asleep, lest the ship arrive at Cascade and leave again before she awoke. She took a small bottle from her bag and popped a few stimulants to keep herself awake. Erin didn’t like to use them unless it was absolutely necessary, since they tended to adversely affect her combat performance--she much preferred coffee--but she wasn’t expecting to be thrown into a fight immediately after arriving in a city like Indara.

Hours passed. Erin whiled the time away by flicking through the CAA Factbook, reading up on colony worlds she could flee to if Cascade didn’t work out. It was a short list. She supposed if she was feeling particularly reckless, she could go to Earth and skulk about right under ONI’s nose, but it wasn’t in her best interests right now. She may not have a specific plan, but that was no reason to do something stupid.

Vertigo roiled in her gut again, and Erin tore her gaze away from her datapad. She held its camera up to a small window, recording as much footage of the stars she could, and set the datapad to determine which star system she was in.

It returned a result a few moments later: the Iota Domum system, home to Cascade, its two moons, and little else noteworthy. Anticipation made Erin fidget as she felt the ship descend to the planet’s surface, cutting through the atmosphere like a blade. When the resounding  _ clang _ of docking clamps echoed through the hull, Erin prepared to flee the ship the fast way--getting rid of the window any way she could, and jumping.

Before she could, however, the cargo compartment door opened, and one crew member walked in. He got two steps inside, made eye contact with Erin, and was about to turn, presumably to shout for help, before Erin tackled him to the ground and held a hand over his mouth and nose, suppressing his breathing until he passed out under her hands.

Now she had a time constraint. She had to be out of here before the crewman awoke and alerted his fellows they had a stowaway. Fortunately, Erin was fully-prepared in her suit of armor right as the man was coming to.

“It’s your lucky day, friend.” she said, putting a foot through the industrial-strength window, and dropping from the new opening, kicking one of the crates she’d used for her armor through the window as well.

In hindsight, she should have checked how far the fall was.

Without her armor, it definitely would have killed her. A chill ran through her veins as she recalled her original plan for leaving the ship--jumping and just taking the crates with her so she could hide her armor if need be. As it was, Erin fell from the opening in the cargo compartment down to the maintenance catwalks below the ship. Darting away before security could be notified, Erin dragged the crate behind the back of the spaceport, divested herself of her armor, and locked it down.

In her civilian clothes, her bag on her shoulder, Erin strode into downtown Indara.

She felt like a fish out of water. She’d been a mercenary on the lawless edges of space for too long to recognize casual chaos for what it was in a high-rise city. Cars honked horns at each other, people conversed openly in the streets with animated hand gestures, and, more importantly, nobody paid Erin any particular mind.

Her first problem was where she was going to crash for the time being. She’d saved enough through mercenary work to get an apartment in the lower end of town, probably, and keep it for at least a few months. It was clear that in a place like this, though, she’d need some extra cash flow.

_ Time to knock some heads together. _

She’d been warned by Captain Terzi, though, that causing trouble one more time would be the last straw. Erin had to be on her best behavior, at least for the time being. That left only a very short list of things she could do. At the top of the list, though, was something Erin missed doing: bounty hunting.

Not only would she be removing criminals from the streets, it was a quick way to earn cash. If she got a few successful bounties under her belt, she might even begin to cultivate something of a reputation.

First things first, though: she had to tap into the bounty network.

It turned out that accessing local criminal records yielded several current bounties, with varying rewards. Erin chose her target with surgical precision. She didn’t want to aim too high and risk being caught or killed. She also didn’t want to aim so low that nobody paid her any mind.

In the end, she found the perfect target: Calvin Myers. Wanted for weapons smuggling, drug trafficking, and a bit of plain old arms dealing on the side, likely in conjunction with the smuggling. There was a helpful list of known locations for him to sell weapons, as well as the vehicles he’d been seen driving.

Erin stretched her neck until it popped. Time to get to work.

* * *

Something Erin forgot about bounty hunting was that sometimes, in order to nail your mark on the first try, you had to carry out some observation. Patience was not normally one of her virtues, but for the sake of her future reputation in this city, on this planet, she had to try.

Myers proved to be a very punctual target. Erin followed him entirely on foot, so she didn’t see all of his usual destinations throughout the city, but he always stopped at the same restaurant at the end of the night. Another day’s worth of observation revealed the restaurant as being a front for one of his weapons smuggling operations. She had no idea how many guards were present, but if she could cause a big enough distraction, she might be able to get Myers out from right under their noses.

Stopping by a gun store nearby and spending some of her mercenary-earned money on an SMG with a silencer and extended magazine, Erin prepared for the job that might not make or break her, but it would certainly announce her presence to the city. Sunset cast the buildings in a fiery light and glowed in Erin’s bright, coppery hair. When the last light disappeared from the horizon, she set off for the restaurant.

Cars were filling every space in the lot, and some cars parked on the streets. A sign advertised that live music would be played tonight, which explained the crowds. Erin was looking for only one vehicle, and found it--a light gray sedan, inconspicuous to most people, marked with a bumper sticker Erin recognized from her observations, driving around the back of the building.

Slipping around the back of the restaurant, SMG in hand, she heard the sound of faint conversing--a deal in progress. Erin gathered herself and leaped over the brick wall separating the alley from the street. Leaning her head around the corner, she spotted two vehicles in the alley. One was the light gray sedan--Myers’ car. The second had to be the buyer’s. Each man had five guards--ten total. If she leaned over the trash can with her elbows, she could take out the buyer, a few guards, vault over the trash can, and snatch the arms dealer right from under his own guards’ noses in the commotion.

Right as Erin was about to put her plan in motion, the sound of a single silenced sniper shot echoed through the alleys, and one of the guards fell.

“What the hell?” she whispered.

For a single beat, there was silence, and then chaos erupted. Erin leaped over the trash cans and began to sprint down the alley at the same time two other men--in a notably different kind of suit than the guards with either the arms dealer or the buyer--came around the opposite corner. One was taller, with long, dark brown or possibly black hair, tied back with a hair tie, and built more broadly; the other was shorter, fair-skinned, with light brown hair shaved on the sides, and a lankier frame. More importantly, however, both of them were armed, and they raised their weapons, aiming either at Erin or the guards surrounding the arms dealer and his buyer. Not that it really mattered, in the pandemonium-- _ someone _ would be hit.

Both sets of guards attempted to drag their clients away from the melee, and Erin seized her chance, charging the group of guards and shoving a few out of her path. The man with a lankier frame and--was that an  _ orange _ tie?--raised a pistol with a silencer affixed to the barrel, and Erin dove on top of her target as the shot whispered over her head. The man with the broader frame, darker skin, and what looked like a forest-green tie, turned at the faint sound of the silenced gunshot, and Erin yanked her target to his feet, grabbing him by the collar, shoving her SMG’s muzzle into the junction of his head and throat, and took off down her escape route--an empty lot behind both adjacent buildings.

Well, at least, it’d been empty when she checked it before coming down here.

Now, however, three trucks and a dozen guards stood in her way. She jerked Myers back around the corner as gunfire ricocheted off the stone nearby her head, sending chips of brick flying. Myers began to whimper, and Erin cast her glance around wildly until it rested on the two new arrivals, under heavy fire from the original guards--who now only numbered eight. She heard footsteps approaching from the trucks behind her, and with a muttered curse, pulled Myers over to where the two men with their own weapons--the one in an orange tie with a pistol and the one in a green tie with a shotgun--were crouched behind a trash can.

The one with an orange tie jerked around as Erin threw Myers to the ground at their feet. Before he could speak, Erin got up in both their faces and snarled, “Look. I’m willing to bet both of us are after the same bounty. There’s a dozen guards coming from our six and eight straight ahead. You want help killing these bastards, or not?”

Before either of them could reply, Erin yanked her SMG out and fired a burst down the alley at their backs, eliminating two of the incoming guards.

“We’re not sharing the bounty.” the one in orange shot back.

“Guess we can talk about that if we survive the next five minutes.” Erin snapped in return. She pinned Myers to the ground with her knee and used him to cushion her recovering leg. She didn’t want to hand these people her name when it was still uncertain whether they would attempt to kill her when this was over, but she could give them an alias. “Call me Nova.”

“Wow,  _ two _ people obsessed with codenames. I can tell this is going to be fun.” the one in the orange tie leaned over and killed two more guards with a silenced pistol. “Unless that really  _ is _ your name.”

Erin didn’t bother to reply, leaning over to fire at the guards in front of them, ducking down as a few more guards behind them worked up the courage to round the corner and shoot. “Unless you expect me to call you by something that reminds me of your tie colors--I’m thinking Sunny for you and Forest for your partner over there--I’d appreciate something to work with.”

The bulkier man, with a shotgun in his hands, grumbled something incoherent, and Erin had a feeling it wasn’t something very kind, but he eventually pointed at his partner and said, through gritted teeth, “That’s Felix. I’m Locus.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Erin muttered as she leaned over to fire another burst of rounds, jamming her knee into Myers’ back just to reinforce the point that he was, in fact, quite screwed. The battle--Erin couldn’t even really call it a  _ battle _ , more of a skirmish--proceeded in that way for a few more moments, where one group would work up the courage to fire, there’d be answering fire, and then they’d duck down again. So far, no injuries or casualties among the three bounty hunters. Not so much for the guards.

Then, a few things happened all at once. Three guards whipped around their cover simultaneously--two in front, one at the rear--and they all opened fire. Erin managed to duck down, and Felix made a dive. Locus attempted to launch backwards, but was a half second too slow, and took a glancing round in the shoulder. Erin lay prone on top of Myers, who hadn’t stopped shaking or whimpering throughout the whole battle. From her position, laying on her stomach, she leaned over and fired at the two guards in front of them. They retreated around a corner, and Erin got up briefly to shove Locus down against the wall, out of the line of fire, one foot still resting on Myers’ shoulders.

Suddenly, three sniper rounds emerged, close range, by the sound of them, and three guards dropped. Erin used her opening and took off, closing with the final group of four guards. Launching a fist up into one’s stomach, she swept his legs out from under him, knocking him into his partner, and she shot them both. One attempted to use his weapon as a bludgeon on the back of her head, but Erin ducked, pulled a knife from her boot, and stuck the man in the throat.

Locus killed the last man with a shotgun burst, and then all was quiet.

For a moment, Erin caught her breath, and turned to see Felix pulling at the shoulder of Locus’ jacket to inspect the wound, weeping blood. Erin cursed and pulled at the hem of the jacket Lynn had given her, tearing off a strip of cloth.

“Use this to stop the bleeding.” she said tersely, holding the cloth out to Felix. He regarded her critically for a moment before snatching the cloth out of her hand and using it to tightly bind the wound.

“It’s fine.” Locus said through a slight wince of pain as Felix pulled the cloth taut. “Just a graze.”

“It’s  _ bleeding _ .” Erin shot back. “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to keep the same quantity of blood in my body that I currently have.”

“You two making friends?”

An unfamiliar voice made Erin turn her head sharply. A man in an infiltrator’s suit in deep violet and carrying a sniper rifle stood at the other end of the alley, watching the trio. He was Asian, dark-haired, and had a few scars on his face--one deep score in his ear--that suggested he was no stranger to combat. One leg was also a combat-grade prosthetic--his left.

Erin narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

“Not so fast.” Felix stopped her, holding up one hand, and hauled Myers to his feet. “We need to turn in our bounty.”

“Hey asshole, you wouldn’t even  _ have _ a bounty if I hadn’t been here.” Erin interrupted, jabbing a finger in his direction, standing between Felix and the new arrival.

“You don’t fight like a green bounty hunter, and I’ve never seen you in this city before.” the new arrival walked around them until he stood nearby Felix. “Who are you?”

“You first.” Erin shot back. She still wasn’t convinced they wouldn’t try to shoot her where she stood for trying to intercept their bounty.

“Siris.” the man gestured at himself. “That’s--”

“Locus and Felix. I got it.” Erin folded her arms. “I’m new to the city, but not new to a fight. I needed some quick cash and took this bounty. No one saw fit to tell me he was already targeted by someone else.”

“What are you doing here, then?” Siris took control of the conversation, and for now, it seemed like Locus and Felix were letting him.  _ Interesting _ . Erin made a note of that.

“Starting over.” that, at least, she could answer honestly. “The only way I know how.”

“Looking for work?” Siris arched one brow.

“Siris, you  _ can’t _ be--” Felix began to interrupt.

“I saw her from the rooftops while I was trying to get down here.” Siris turned his gaze on both of the other mercenaries. “You were surrounded.”

“We have survived worse.” Locus muttered from where he leaned against the wall. Erin noted that the blood had stopped spreading on the improvised bandage, and nodded with slight approval. The wound wasn’t bad.

“Survived? Yes. But unscathed?” Siris slowly shook his head. “It’s not a statement about your talents. It’s a statement about luck, and you  _ were _ lucky to have someone else down here to fight with you.”

“So, what?” Felix was definitely the most vocal in his opinions. She kept her eye on Locus, in case all of this was a clever diversion so he could kill her quietly, but so far he hadn’t moved from the wall and staunchly refused to meet her gaze. “We take her in? Since when do we start taking in random bounty hunters as our partners?”

“We don’t.” Siris stated. “We bring people into this circle who have talents we can use.” he turned back to Erin, then. “Where were you trained?”

“A privately funded and covert military force, indirectly and somewhat loosely affiliated with the UNSC.” Erin leaned her weight on her left leg. “We were ranked based on skill. I was near the top of the leaderboard. Third, if you want to get technical.”

“Yeah? What happened to those above you?” Felix challenged, a hint of humor somewhere in his tone. “Should we be talking to them instead?”

“They’re dead, or may as well be.” Erin said flatly. “They were both my friends.”

There was a beat of quiet. “Well shit, now  _ I _ feel like an asshole.” Felix muttered.

“So.” Siris spoke again, and Erin returned her attention to him. “ _ Are _ you looking for work?”

“Is this one of those situations where you make me an offer I can’t refuse?” Erin unfolded her arms and planted fists upon hips. “I join you and you don’t have to kill me, and all that?”

“No.” Siris sounded surprised. “We don’t murder in cold blood. Odds are we’ll cross paths again, though, if you’re planning on staying.”

“I am.” Erin said.

“Then it might be in everyone’s best interests to stick together.” Siris finished. “If we all agree?”

A glance was shot at Felix, who sighed explosively and made a dismissive hand gesture. “Whatever.”

Locus appeared to be considering it. “We  _ could _ use another knife specialist.” he said slowly. “And hand-to-hand is something we could stand to brush up on.”

Siris turned back to Erin. “So?” he held out a hand. “What do you say?”

Erin hesitated for a brief moment, then carefully shook Siris’ hand. “All right. I accept.”

“What are we supposed to call you, then?” Felix looked her up and down skeptically. “You never said whether ‘Nova’ was your real name.”

“It isn’t, but I’m not handing my real name to people who might’ve wanted to kill me less than twenty minutes ago.” Erin retorted mildly. “Call me that for now.”

Felix gave a casual shrug. “Fine.”

“Let’s get out of here.”


	6. Chapter 6

That car ride was undoubtedly one of the most awkward in Erin’s life.

Siris drove, Felix claimed shotgun, and that left Erin and Locus in the backseat with their bounty banging on the trunk lid behind them. She attempted to adopt a casual approach to the car ride, balancing one ankle over her knee with her arms draped over her legs, staring out the window, but the tension was thick enough to cut with the knife in Erin’s boot.

“So,” Felix broke the silence eventually, and there seemed to be a tacit agreement not to mention the man banging his fists fruitlessly on the inside of the trunk, “how long you planning on staying in the city?”

Erin considered the question. It couldn’t have been directed at anyone else. “I don’t know, honestly,” she admitted after a moment’s thought, “but I don’t have plans to leave anytime soon. Not like I have anywhere else to go.”

She felt Siris’ eyes on her from the rearview mirror, but pretended not to notice. Erin changed the subject before he could ask anything. “What about you? How long have you guys been here?”

“Eh, I guess it’s been a few years now.” Felix lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe two?”

“Hmm.” Erin said ambiguously.

Another few moments of tense silence passed. Siris cleared his throat slightly and took up the conversation. “Any family nearby?”

Erin couldn’t help a short, sharp, and bitter bark of laughter, which clearly surprised the rest of the vehicle’s occupants--even Locus, who looked up. Erin leaned back again, fingers laced behind her head. “No, no family.” she said, and left it at that.

After, they drove in silence until they reached the place where the trio usually turned bounties in. Erin elected to stay in the car, expecting all the others to jump at the chance to escape. Felix and Siris left, but Locus didn’t, and Erin cast a glance over at him, letting out a slight breath. It somehow felt slightly less awkward than when the four of them were all in the car, and neither felt the need to make conversation, but Erin couldn’t resist saying something.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“I talk,” Locus replied, without looking over, “if I have something to say.”

Erin nodded once, slowly. “I respect that. Reminds me of someone I knew once.”

He didn’t ask, and Erin didn’t elaborate. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes until Siris and Felix returned. “Another job well done...by  _ most _ parties.” his words didn’t have the same sting when Erin felt a wad of cash land in her lap. She didn’t bother to count it right then and there, but she knew it was more than enough to get her temporary lodging.

“It’s getting late.” Siris remarked as the last of the sunlight departed the horizon. “Megan would probably make something--”

“ _ Yes. _ ” Felix said, leaning his seat back far enough that it pressed Erin’s legs uncomfortably against the back of the seat, and she drew them up to her chest instead.

“Who’s Megan?” Erin asked.

“My wife.” Siris looked in the rearview mirror to address Erin. “Sometimes we come by and have dinner at my place after a job.”

Erin was filled with a sudden, sharp panic. “That sounds nice,” she said, working hard to keep her voice under control. Family dinners around a table smacked a little too much of the Freelancers around the same mess hall table every evening, and Erin wasn’t sure she could stomach that memory just yet, when things were still this raw. “I couldn’t impose, though.”

“Sweet, more for me.” Felix said breezily. “She makes some good shit.”

“If we’re going to be working together,” Siris spoke up instead, “maybe this is a good place to start. Right?”

Erin was torn between the admittedly sound logic and her own need to stay as far away from anything resembling a family as possible. Finally, she relented with a sigh. “Fine.”

Siris and Felix began to discuss something in the front, and Erin tuned out their chatter, closing her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Siris and Felix were still talking, and Erin turned to Locus.

He was adopting a similar position as Erin--well, not  _ exactly _ the same, her knees were still pulled up to her chest from when Felix leaned his seat all the way back--with his eyes closed, but he must have felt her gaze on him; he opened his eyes and looked over. “What?” he asked. There wasn’t an accusation in the tone, for which Erin chose to be grateful.

“How’s the shoulder?” Erin asked the first thing that came to mind.

He grunted ambiguously. “Not the worst I’ve gotten.”

Siris put their car in park before Erin could think of something else to say, and she didn’t know whether or not she was relieved. Felix and Locus were out first, leaving Erin to languish behind, but Siris waited.

“I’ll make you a deal.” he said when Erin finally figured she couldn’t put this off any longer and shut the car door. “Your name for mine.”

She hesitated for only a moment.  _ Gotta start somewhere. _ “Erin O’Connor.”

“Mason Wu.”

“It’s a...nice name.” Erin commented. “Tell me something.”

Siris turned his head and indicated Erin continue.

She shifted from foot to foot uneasily. “You’re awfully quick to trust me.”

“You’re saying we shouldn’t?” he countered.

“No, not saying that, just...” Erin shook her head. “...I don’t understand, is all. I was competition. Removing me from the system would be more profits for you and your partners.”

“And bringing you in means we can do more.” Siris pointed out, starting to walk up the steps to his home. “More manpower means more flexibility in missions. We can take on more complex jobs with an extra set of hands.”

Erin let out a breath, not fully convinced, but willing to take it as it was for now. Better than striking out on her own, at least until she got a more steady foothold in the city. “If you say so.”

Inside, Erin was shown a place to set her jacket--still missing the bottom hem when she tore it off to use as an improvised bandage for Locus--and Siris walked behind her into the living room. It was such a... _ domestic _ scene that all Erin could do for a moment was stop and stare like a fool. Fortunately, Felix was speaking animatedly with a woman she took to be Siris’ wife, which bought her a few seconds to compose herself, and Locus was sitting on a couch as far away from the commotion as possible. Erin could relate.

The woman talking with Felix looked up after a few moments. Her face was heart-shaped and fair-skinned with faint freckles not unlike Erin’s own, though fewer in number, dyed golden-blonde hair falling just to her shoulders and parted to the right. A pair of square, black-rimmed glasses sat atop the bridge of her nose, and behind them sat a pair of light brown eyes. Her face clouded with confusion. “Mason?”

“A new partner.” Siris’ hand on her shoulder felt more sure than Erin felt herself, but she forced her posture straighter.

“It’s, uh, Erin.” she cleared her throat slightly, aware that this was the first time Felix and Locus had heard her real name, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. What was the worst that can happen, them knowing her name? “I’m Erin.”

The woman got up and took one of Erin’s hands, pressing it between both of hers as she guided the taller woman to sit down. “I’m Megan. Please, sit down. Make yourself at home.”

Felix looked positively tickled at Erin’s discomfort, and she made a note to herself to get back at him for that later, somehow. Locus tried to appear impassive, but there was a curious tilt to his head that made Erin wonder how out of place she actually looked here. She forced herself to lean back, wincing as the stitches in her back were pulled slightly.

Conversations thankfully resumed around her, and she heard Felix begin to recount the tale of their most recent bounty. Erin closed her eyes and hoped he didn’t make her sound too awful.

A twinge of pain in her back caught her attention again, and with a frown, Erin opened her eyes and leaned forward, trying to twist around to look at her lower back. The motion caught the notice of Megan, Siris, and Locus in that order, and Felix noticed when his story was no longer the center of attention.

“Erin?” Megan asked, brow pinched with concern. “Is everything all right?”

Erin tossed her braid over her other shoulder and craned her neck around, but a sharp pain right where her stitches lurked made her bite her lip to keep from making an audible sound. She felt the dreaded warmth of blood, leaking through, and said, irritated, “Damn it. Got a washcloth you don’t mind getting blood on?”

The mention of blood caught the mercenaries’ attention. Locus spoke, almost sharply, as Megan darted off. “You got hit in the fight?”

“No.” Erin stood up, as though this was merely an annoying inconvenience, as Megan returned, holding what appeared to be an old, threadbare washcloth. Lifting the back of her shirt, she pressed the cloth against where she knew Lynn had sewed careful stitches, intended for the stress of travel, but apparently not open combat. “One of my stitches must have popped.”

“Stitches? In your  _ back? _ ” Siris didn’t  _ quite _ sound incredulous, but his tone verged on it, and the idea of telling the whole story again made a stone of dread sit heavy in Erin’s stomach.

“It’s nothing.” she said flatly, pulling the cloth away to examine the amount of blood on it. “Just a minor stab wound, is all. I think it’s already stopped bleeding.”

“Keep the cloth.” Megan didn’t look entirely like she was finished being concerned, but being the center of attention was never something Erin had been comfortable with.

She waved them away. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.” she said again. “Don’t let me interrupt your storytelling, Felix.”

Which, when he realized he was once again being paid attention to, he continued. Megan kept throwing concerned glances in Erin’s direction, and Erin pretended to not see them. Accepting medical help and concern from Lynn was different--she was a  _ doctor _ . Megan Wu was a civilian, someone’s wife, and Erin had just started bleeding all over her living room. Instead of pitching a fit like Erin’s parents or friends of her parents might’ve, she’d fetched a washcloth, told Erin to keep it, and now wouldn’t stop throwing glances her way that sent a stab of unease straight to Erin’s gut every time.

Quickly, quietly, as Felix was about to finish telling his story--she couldn’t even bring herself to listen how she was described in it--Erin couldn’t take the atmosphere another second and rose to her feet, sliding out the front door to the porch. There was a rail around the porch that she leaned on, and checked again that the cloth hadn’t been saturated with too much blood.

A few moments passed, and the door opened--probably Siris come to tell her she was a massive embarrassment and needed to leave before she did any more damage, and who would blame him, really?--so Erin turned around with a sigh and began, “Look, I--”

But she stopped. It wasn’t Siris, but Megan, and she came to lean next to Erin on the rail. “What is it?”

Erin cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uh. Sorry about the washcloth. If I got any blood on the couch, I’ll get it off; I know a few tricks for that.”

Megan shook her head. “I’m not worried about that. Is something the matter?”

Erin could have delved so deeply into self-pity she might never claw her way back out, but that would benefit no one, least of all herself, so Erin did what she always did--squashed the feeling down until it was barely noticeable again. She opted for humor. It’d served her well in the past, most of the time. “Besides the usual? No.”

“You looked uncomfortable in there.” Megan looked over at Erin, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet the other woman’s gaze when she knew what she’d see there: concern, worry, maybe even compassion. All those things she didn’t deserve yet, if she ever had.

“I just...I prefer when...” Erin trailed off. There was no way she could tell this woman  _ “I prefer when people don’t care about me” _ because that wasn’t quite true, not really, but she hadn’t been shown this much open concern in years, over a decade by now, at least, and it was a night-and-day difference. “Look, it makes me uncomfortable when people worry about me. That’s all. I’ve always been able to take care of myself.”

Megan shook her head slowly. “No one’s questioning that.”

“No, I know that, I...” Erin buried her face in one hand, frustrated. It was difficult to make someone else understand when she wasn’t entirely sure she understood it herself. She slowed down, began again. “I’ve been in the military for my whole adult life. They don’t hand you washcloths and ask you if you’re okay in the military when you start bleeding. Well, actually, they do, but not nearly as nicely. I’m just more used to that kind of concern than...normal concern, I guess.”

When Megan didn’t reply for a moment, Erin was convinced she’d only made things worse, but to her great shock, Megan picked up one of Erin’s hands, draped over the railing, and pressed the cold digits of Erin’s fingers between her warm ones. “I think you have a long story to tell, my friend.”

Erin swallowed the lump in her throat as she fought the overwhelming swell of emotion, but managed it, with effort _. _ She stiffened, and didn’t draw her hand away just yet, but when she said, “You could say that,” the sentence still sounded more strangled than she’d care for. Her next words sounded more steady as she continued, “What are the others up to inside?”

“Felix finished his story.” Megan’s brown eyes lit up. “They’re getting started on food. Felix complained that you’re disruptive.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “I’m getting the impression that Felix complains a lot.”

They walked back inside, and Megan said, “Mason mentioned you’re a new partner of theirs. Does that mean you’re staying in the city?”

“For the time being, at least.” Erin replied, following Megan to what had to be the kitchen. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“You’ll have to stop by again.” Megan said easily, slipping into the kitchen, and Erin stopped dead in the hall for a moment before catching back up. Megan not only wasn’t angry Erin had bled all over her living room and ruined one of her washcloths, but wanted her to come  _ back? _

“I...uh,” Erin went for honesty, and surprised even herself with her reply, “I’d like that.”

* * *

With Megan’s arrival in the kitchen, things proceeded much more quickly. Erin didn’t know what they were making--she merely followed instructions when she was given them. Whatever it was, it smelled of garlic, cheese, and spices, so Erin figured it couldn’t possibly be bad. When she spotted Megan breaking a handful of noodles in half, her heart rose a fraction.

“Spaghetti?” she asked with a small, hesitant smile.

Megan looked over, a grin tugging at one corner of her mouth. “How long’s it been since you’ve had any?”

Erin thought about it. “I don’t remember,” she said honestly, but regretted it when she saw that it very nearly floored Megan. It seemed like an innocuous thing, but Erin had no negative or positive feelings on it. She simply couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a home-cooked meal. She cleared her throat slightly and asked, “Do I need to do anything else?”

Megan took a moment to reply. “No, just go sit.” she said at last, then turned back to stirring noodles.

Erin went into the dining room, where a table sat, with a few chairs pulled up to it that clearly didn’t match. Siris sat at its head, with an empty seat next to him, which Erin guessed belonged to Megan. Felix and Locus sat across from one another, and the only empty seat left was next to Locus.

She shrugged. It wasn’t like he was going to put a butter knife through her thigh. Probably.

Megan came in a few moments later with a colander full of spaghetti noodles, a pot of red sauce, and she made a second trip for a basket of bread. Erin hadn’t thought she’d be this hungry, but her stomach rumbled, and it didn’t take long for her to dig into a healthy helping of mixed noodles and sauce.

For a few moments, no one spoke, focusing on their food, then Megan leaned her elbows on the table. “So, Felix graced us with the story of how you met,” she said, glancing down the table at Erin, who was in the process of tearing a piece of bread into tiny pieces and dunking them into her leftover sauce, “but when did you arrive? Where from?”

Erin carefully set her pieces of bread down, lacing her fingers together atop the table. “Well,” she began eloquently; she hadn’t prepared for these questions, but she could feel all eyes on her and knew they had to be curious, “I got here...pretty recently. I came from another world. Tiny, cold colony world called Synre.” she figured there was no point in mentioning Anchor 11; that would just raise more questions Erin didn’t want to--couldn’t yet--answer. “Pretty much the middle of nowhere.”

“Indara’s kind of different. Like, opposite end of the spectrum.” Felix remarked.

“All by design.” Erin replied with a dry grin. “Small settlements have always been my cup of tea. So to speak. But it was time for a change.”

No one seemed to pick up the extra weight in that statement, for which Erin was grateful, and she went to pick up her pieces of shredded bread again before realizing they were all but fully saturated in sauce, and far too soggy to pick up. She scowled.

Before she could get up and take her plate to a sink to wash it, though, an untouched piece of bread landed on one corner of her plate, and she looked over at Locus, sitting next to her, who hadn’t said a word throughout the conversation.

Erin didn’t call attention to it, either, merely tore the piece in half and threw one of the halves in his general direction, dunking the other in her remaining sauce once again.

“So,” Felix began again, looking up at Erin, “we need to see what you can do.”

Erin blinked. “What, like, in a fight? You  _ saw _ me fight.”

“I saw you exchange SMG bursts over a trash can.” Felix corrected. “Plus, after a job we have to stay in shape until the next one.”

“There’s a place we go to spar and practice, to keep in shape.” Locus took up the conversation instead. “We should meet there tomorrow morning.”

Erin shrugged. “Fine. What time?”

Felix started to reply, but Locus cut across it with a glare. “Oh-eight-hundred.” he replied.

Before Erin could respond, Felix sighed explosively. “Why can’t you say it like a  _ normal _ person? And why do we have to do it so goddamned  _ early? _ ”

“Sooner we start, sooner we can be done.” Erin reasoned, a slight smile curving up one side of her mouth. “Where is it?”

“I’ll text you the address.” Felix replied easily, and Erin froze halfway standing.

“Could you...write it down for me, instead?” Erin asked awkwardly. “I don’t, uh, have a phone yet.”

He graced her with another ridiculous sigh in response. “ _ Fine, _ I guess.”

Dish cleanup with five people was quick and efficient, with Megan supervising. After, Felix, Locus, and Erin all left, the former two heading for their own cars. Locus had something that resembled an all-terrain vehicle, but bigger, and more enclosed. Unsurprising even though she’d only known him for a few hours, Felix drove an extravagant sports car. The sedan the four used to transport their bounty earlier in the day had to belong to Siris and Megan.

“You’re walking?” Felix asked when he noticed Erin set off down the sidewalk.

“Left my car at the restaurant.” she lied easily. She  _ did _ need to get back there, to get her bag of clothes, so she felt it was a fairly solid alibi.

Felix shrugged, and the two mercenaries left.

Erin set a brisk pace down the sidewalk, following her datapad’s directions back to the restaurant. Police cars flashed their bright red-and-blue lights, and the whole alley was marked with crime scene tape. She imagined that, no matter how well they’d managed to clean the scene up, they’d left  _ quite _ an interesting report for an inspector to write.

Fortunately, her bag was stored around the corner, near the opposite end of the bigger lot where her escape had been cut off earlier. Vaulting over the brick wall again, Erin darted around the crime scene tape, into the empty lot, and swung her bag over her shoulder from where she’d hidden it in an inconspicuous hole in the building’s masonry.

Pulling out her datapad, Erin ran a search for motels in the area. She knew she couldn’t get a decent room without proof of her official presence here, but seedy motels couldn’t really care less about whether she was here legally. Her search came back with one a few miles away, and Erin committed the route to memory before setting off.

It proved to be as sordid-looking and dilapidated as Erin expected, and in short order, she’d passed a portion of the cash Felix had tossed her from today’s bounty into the manager’s hands. It would get her a room for at least the next few weeks, and by then she hoped to have at least located, if not moved into, a place of her own.

Tossing her bag into the nearest chair, Erin didn’t even bother trying to find a more comfortable outfit to sleep in before collapsing into bed, springs squeaking and bedspread smelling faintly of old detergent. She remembered to set her datapad’s alarm to wake her up at 6. She hadn’t mapped out her route to the place she was supposed to meet her new partners the following morning, and two hours should give her plenty of time to walk there or take public transit if need be.

Today had taken an unexpected turn, Erin thought as she tossed and turned, attempting to sleep. She’d gotten her foot in the door of this city in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

But, Erin added to herself as the homemade spaghetti still sat warm in her stomach and the washcloth Megan had pressed into her hand remained on her back, she thought that she could live with it.


	7. Chapter 7

Six in the morning came far, far too soon.

Erin’s datapad beeped insistently, letting her know that she’d better get her ass out of bed and start getting ready if she was going to make it in time. Reaching over to the bedside table for the datapad, she remembered she’d stuck it on a dresser so she had to physically get out of bed to turn it off. Groaning, Erin shoved the threadbare bedspread off, throwing her legs over the side of the bed. After turning off her alarm, she fed the address Felix had sent her into it, and it searched for the best route on foot.

While it worked, Erin ran a comb through her copper locks and began to braid it. She’d long since moved past needing a mirror to complete the task.

_ Can’t stand looking at your own face in the mirror, huh? What does  _ that _ say about you? _

Ignoring her internal negativity, Erin finished her braid and tied it off with the hair tie on her wrist. She swapped the shirt she’d worn yesterday, and slept in, for a thin-strap tank top and the same stretchy workout pants she wore under armor. Her sneakers, old and beat-up and the same ones she’d worn for years and years completed the outfit, and she pulled the rest of her new clothes out of the bag, leaving them on the chair. She tossed the remainder of yesterday’s cash and her datapad in their place, shouldered the bag after checking her route, and set off.

It wasn’t too far of a walk, after a short bus trip, but it would clearly take her the remaining time available to her in order to make it on time. She increased her pace to a brisk walk, then broke into a jog, measuring her breath and counting her steps, exhaling every second strike of her left foot on the sidewalk. It was early enough that there were few other joggers out, and the ones Erin passed paid her little mind.

At her jogging speed, she arrived about fifteen minutes early. She used the time to cool down from her jog and do some preliminary stretches. The building in front of her was, in fact, what appeared to be an older, broken-down gym with boarded-up windows and sawdust everywhere. Clearly it’d been left behind by the previous owners some time before.

Siris’ sedan and Locus’ all-terrain car arrived in short order a few minutes before eight. Felix’s easily-recognizable sports car rolled slowly in shortly after. Siris had a key, and let the group in.

“How’d you get this place?” Erin asked, looking around.

Felix rolled his eyes. “City real estate didn’t give a shit about it. No one bought the place after a while, and we rolled up and moved in. Nobody cares enough to kick us out.”

Erin dumped her bag on the ground and rolled her shoulders in an easy stretch. “So, what’s first?”

Felix yawned. “Sleep.”

“You should’ve slept during the night.” Locus muttered.

“Fine.” Felix must have been tired, Erin guessed, to not argue with Locus about anything. “Then, I think you and Locus should spar first, because I’m definitely better and you’re probably not, and I don’t wanna waste my time.”

Erin narrowed her eyes and would have shot something very venomous back in response, but Locus beat her to it, surprisingly enough. “Even if she’s as bad as you assume she is, she could best you right now.” Locus pointed out, a downturn to his mouth that reminded Erin of exasperation and displeasure in equal parts. “Besides, we’ve already seen that she killed a guard with a knife yesterday.”

“What?” Felix scowled. “No, she didn’t. I didn’t see it.”

“ _ I  _ did.” Locus repeated.

“Siris, did you see this hypothetical ‘knife kill’?” Felix put the final two words in air quotes, as though it was completely implausible.

“No,” Siris admitted, “but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“Ugh, come  _ on _ , man, you’ve  _ got _ to take my side.” Felix complained. “You  _ never _ take my side.”

“That’s because your side is usually  _ wrong _ .” Locus gritted out through his teeth. “You fight with knives, and clearly she does, too. If you’re  _ that _ concerned about being defeated--”

“Nope.” Felix was already on his feet. “I’m not worried at  _ all _ .”

Erin and Felix circled each other in the sparring area, Siris and Locus supervising. They were using dummy knives, still metal, but completely dull. They were also coated with red coloring, to show where wounds appeared, and if a killing strike was made, a point went to the victor. Whoever had the most points out of three won the match.

Waiting filled Erin with an easy anticipation, the knife comfortable in her hand. She could wait forever like this, if need be. Felix moved first, and Erin feinted left, slipping under Felix’s strike like liquid, using her own knife to block the strike he attempted to make as she dodged him. She kept close by his back, forcing him to move more than her in order to get a good position. Swiping the knife across his lower ribcage, the hit knocked him slightly off-balance, and Erin spun gracefully on her toes, jabbing him in the lower back with the knife’s tip.

“Called.” Locus said.

“I wouldn’t have died from that.” Felix griped.

“Not immediately, maybe.” Erin stepped away, a smile tugging at her lips. “But you’d be paralyzed, and not exactly in a position to retaliate.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Felix threw the knife in silvery arcs in the air, clearly trying to save face. “Figured I’d let you get  _ one _ win in so you don’t quit right away.  _ Now _ it gets serious.”

Erin reset their positions with a sly grin, opposite from each other once more. “Whatever you say.”

For the second round, it was clear Felix was waiting for Erin to lose patience first, but while patience was not normally one of her virtues, when holding a knife, she could wait out her opponent as long as necessary. Felix growled and charged forward first, once again, and this time Erin grabbed his free wrist with her own free hand and twisted,  _ hard _ , but he broke the lock and turned quickly around, knife out.

Erin slid out of the strike’s path and twisted her knife-holding wrist against Felix’s, causing him to lose his grip on his knife. Catching the knife out of the air, she gripped it by the blade and threw. The blade bounced right off Felix’s chest before he could recover.

“Called.” Locus said again. If Erin wasn’t mistaken, he had a faintly satisfied--maybe even pleased?--expression on his face.

Felix sighed and said, “I don’t know how you can expect me to take fights seriously this early in the morning.”

“It’s almost 8:30.” Erin pointed out.

“Right. Too early.” Felix stated. “Ready for round 3?”

“Figured I should be asking  _ you _ that.” Erin challenged, resetting their positions for the third and final time. Technically, she’d already won the match, since she’d gotten two out of three, but she figured she’d take her chance to practice while she could.

“Oh-ho! Getting a bit confident, Killer?” Felix’s face split into a grin, and Erin couldn’t tell if it was genuine or predatory. She supposed it didn’t matter, either way.

“Talk is cheap.” Erin stood in her ready stance, knife in hand, words more tense than before. “We doing this or not?”

This time, they both moved at the same time, and the fight got more scrappy and close-up than the previous two matches before it. Erin guessed Felix didn’t like being shown up in his specialty by the newcomer, but in all honesty, Erin had much more to prove. She hadn’t even known these people for twenty-four hours. If she intentionally lost, she risked appearing weak at a critical time.

It ended up with both of them on the floor, Erin on top, knives pressed so hard against each other that Erin could  _ see _ the blunted metal straining. She had to end this. Right as Siris got up, presumably to finish the fight for them, Erin rolled so Felix was on top of her for a brief second before throwing him off, onto his stomach, and leaping on top of his back before he recovered. She pressed the fake knife to Felix’s throat, and felt relieved when she heard Locus’ voice say, “Called.”

Erin rose immediately, stretched her wrists, and offered a hand to Felix when he turned over. He shot such a vitriolic glare at her that she almost recoiled, but she refused to back down. Finally, Felix took Erin’s hand and she pulled him up with one swift motion.

Normally, after a spar, whoever won might offer the loser a bit of advice, but Erin had a feeling Felix wouldn’t take that very well right at the moment--or ever. Instead, she said, “Probably the hardest spar I’ve had for a long time.” which was the truth; in Freelancer, there were only two other agents who could use blades, and neither of them had ever fought with her degree of skill.

Felix cast another glance at her as he swiped the red coloring off his clothes. “Didn’t look like it.” he muttered.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Erin pointed out, and she caught the towel Siris threw her.

Felix rolled his eyes. “Oh my God, could you  _ be _ any more dramatic?”

Locus snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Dramatic or not, it  _ was _ an impressive match.” Siris regarded Erin a bit more carefully. “This project that trained you--did they have a knife specialist before you?”

“Please.  _ I _ was the knife specialist.” Erin tossed the dummy knife in the air and caught it by the blade. “I fought with them on my own when I was younger. Just needed some refining.”

When both Erin and Felix had caught their breath, the four grouped up to do some target practice. Erin wondered where they could have possibly found the space to set up a gun range here. When she was shown the place, though, she realized that what they defined as target practice was something that reminded her so much of Freelancer it almost hurt.

An obstacle course with various inhibitors was set up in the biggest room Erin had seen in this gym yet--it had probably been a basketball or gravball court of some kind at one point. From the ‘armory’, Erin took an SMG outfitted with paint bullets. When she picked the weapon up, picked up the magazine of paint rounds so like the ones used on the  _ Mother of Invention _ , she found herself swarmed by memories, and her throat grew tight.

She remembered countless late nights doing knife spars with Wash and CT, while the others watched and took bets on who would win the most rounds. She remembered the paint rounds narrowly dodged, and the ones not dodged at all, and Carolina’s satisfaction at having never been hit. She also remembered the first spars she did after Chi had been implanted in her for the first time, but she shoved that particular memory away; it was too painful right now to examine that closely.

She didn’t want to remember the leaderboard that floated above the floor, the catalyst for the rivalries that brought the project down, but couldn’t stop it from surfacing, as well.

“Erin.” Siris’ voice got her attention, and she turned her head. “Everything okay?”

Everyone else in the armory had stopped what they were doing to watch her. How long had she been standing here, drowning in memories still too raw to voice? “Fine.” she said, carefully neutral. “How does this work?”

“Pretty self-explanatory.” Felix checked his pistol. “We hit each other with paint rounds until we get a kill-shot. The only one left ‘alive’ at the end wins the round. You know how the paint works? It’s--”

“I’m familiar with it.” Erin said, pulling the slide of her SMG back slightly harder than she needed to. “Let’s do this.”

All four mercenaries entered one corner of the obstacle course. It was more complex than the one aboard the  _ Mother of Invention _ , with cover of various sizes and materials. Some of them might break even under the paint rounds. Erin could certainly appreciate a more realistic environment for training purposes.

She clutched her SMG carefully, keeping her ears open for any whisper of sound. In armor, she would rely on her audio receivers, and she’d be able to adjust their sensitivity. Out of armor, though, she had to rely solely on her ears and her instincts. It filled her with a thrill. She got the feeling her new partners didn’t use fully-powered assault armor that often. It’d be a new challenge, fighting without it, but in truth it was kind of exciting.

Erin stopped when she reached a corner, and took a deep breath, leaning her ear closer to the edge. She risked peering around with the farthest corner of her cone of vision and nearly got a paint round in the eye for the attempt. Leaning back around, Erin spotted more cover a short distance away. Tucking into a swift roll, she came up behind the waist-high stone barrier, popped over, and let loose a quick flurry of rounds.

It hadn’t been intended to hit anything, but to give her a gauge of her opponent’s reaction time. She couldn’t see who was shooting at her, but if she had to guess, she’d say it was Siris. Too cautious to be Felix, not pinpointed enough to be Locus. She’d only gotten a vague idea of her opponent’s location from the fired rounds, but she guessed again, fired in the direction she thought was likely, and got rewarded with a grunt in Siris’ tone of voice.

Darting from her waist-high cover, Erin took a paint round to the hip and fell to the side, but managed to get herself behind another cover. A single, deliberate strike, from high above--it had to be Locus. Her hip and left leg were numb, but she reloaded her paint magazine and leaned against her new cover, taking a breath.

Felix rounded the corner and immediately went back the way he came, firing a few paint rounds at Erin that sailed wide. Rolling to her right leg and cursing the bad luck of Locus’ strike, Erin slipped after him, hugging the cover to hopefully keep Locus from targeting her again. She managed to get around the corner and fire a burst at Felix’s retreating back, catching him in the shoulder blade area before he made it out of sight.

Before Erin could continue her pursuit, though, Siris emerged from the same direction Erin retreated from, with a few paint rounds immobilizing one arm and making his upper chest more stiff. He and Erin both hesitated, both fired at the same time, and found themselves both on the floor, completely frozen in place.

“I, uh, I guess that didn’t work out as planned.” Erin managed to mutter. “For either of us.”

Siris managed a tight chuckle. “Caught me by surprise.” he admitted.

In the end, Locus took the round, with a single strike near Felix’s throat. The paint swelled in such a way that Felix had to keep his head turned to the side until Locus managed to break the paint blob off. Once Felix was freed, he and Locus quickly broke the paint keeping Erin and Siris on the floor. Erin rolled her shoulders and neck, stretching both legs. “That hurts more than I remember.” she remarked. “Still sucks even in armor, though.”

“You’re telling me.” Felix winced as he too stretched his neck. “Try taking one in the goddamn throat.”

After resupplying paint ammo and resetting the destroyed barricades, they started the next round. They completed five rounds in total, with no clear victor. Locus won the first, Siris the second, Erin the third, Siris took another victory in the fourth, and Felix won the fifth and final round. By the time they declared the match over, it was early afternoon, and everyone was hungry. Erin was shown another small miracle in this gym: ramen noodles.

“Easy to buy, easy to store, and easy to make.” Felix stood in front of a microwave, waiting for it to finish its cycle. “Perfect gym food.”

“Not exactly the  _ healthiest _ gym food.” Locus pointed out, a forkful of noodles already halfway to his mouth.

“Pretty sure salty food is a requirement after workouts, right?” Erin said, gesturing with her fork. “It replaces the...electrolytes, or something.”

“See? Erin gets it.” Felix took his own noodles out of the microwave and sat down in one of three folding chairs. Siris and Locus sat in the chairs remaining. Both of the latter two mercenaries had already offered to give up their seat to Erin, with Felix muttering, “How chivalrous of you,” but Erin declined, even though her right shin was starting to ache.

“So how often do you guys do this?” Erin asked when it seemed like the food had been mostly consumed.

“Every few days, usually.” Locus looked up. “We tend to lay low after a job’s been completed, at least for a week or two. It depends largely on the type of job.”

Erin took one last bite of her ramen, finishing the bowl, and drank the remaining broth. Tossing the container into the nearest waste bin, she leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Sounds good to me.”

For the next several days, things proceed in that fashion. Every other day or so, the group of four got together to train. They didn’t always meet at the same time--sometimes it was in the morning, sometimes early afternoon, sometimes early or even late evening, training long into the night. They didn’t always do the same things, either. Over the course of the next few training sessions, Erin sparred with her other partners, learned their fighting styles.

Siris was cautious, but once he made a strike, it was strategically placed. Felix’s style was more wild, but Erin described it as controlled chaos. Locus’ was simply  _ controlled _ . He was always calm when sparring, no matter with who, and Erin found him the greatest challenge simply because he was the hardest to read.

They also ran the obstacle course in different ways. Sometimes they ran it as a free-for-all, like on Erin’s first day, but more often they grouped into pairs and fought that way. Pairs were always changed at the end of a round, and Erin learned that her partners’ sparring styles said a great deal about their general combat styles as well. They all excelled with improvisation and coming up with creative solutions to unexpected problems.

More importantly, they fought like they’d been doing it together for years.

Erin had rarely felt such familiarity with anyone she’d fought alongside, except in Freelancer, and even then it had taken her a great deal of time to put some trust in her teammates. She did wonder how this newfound cooperation with her new partners would translate in actual combat, but she remained cautiously optimistic about their chances. She’d developed a rapport with all of them, even Locus, who, by tacit agreement, had begun to give his chair to Erin without her asking every other day of training. No one wisely remarked on it, not even Erin herself, though she  _ was _ curious.

Their first opportunity to work together as a whole unit came sooner than expected.

* * *

Late at night, the planet’s two moons rising far past the sky’s zenith, the four finished their obstacle course runs for the night. When Erin checked her watch, the digits read 12:58 A.M. at her, and she stretched as they headed for the makeshift kitchen, where Felix was already rummaging through the ramen cabinet.

“We’ve got a problem.” he stated.

Everyone looked over. “What is it?” Erin finally asked, after a charged hesitation. She wasn’t sure what to expect. With Felix, she was coming to learn, it could have been anything from a surprise pipe bomb hidden in the cupboard to a leg cramp.

“We’re out of ramen.” he said, very gravely and seriously, but Erin still couldn’t tell whether or not he was  _ actually _ serious about this, or faking. He leaned out of the cabinet and against the wall, legs stretched out. “Where the hell can we get ramen at one in the goddamned morning?”

There was a pause, and Siris shrugged. “Guess we’re going to find out.”

Jackets were grabbed, cell phones put in pockets--Erin put her own newly-acquired cell phone in the waistband of her pants instead, lacking pockets--and the group of four set out on the streets of downtown Indara, on a mission.

“I know a place.” Siris stated first, and took the lead, with the remainder of the group falling into a loose formation behind.

When that place proved to be closed, Siris recovered with the offer of another store, and with minimal complaining from Felix, they set off again. By now, it was nearly 1:30, and Erin’s right shin was starting to ache. She’d taken a paint round there, right where it’d been cracked several weeks before. After waving off Siris’ hand up when she took longer than normal to rise, she’d popped a painkiller. Clearly it was already wearing off.

Felix growled loudly in frustration when Siris’ second suggestion was no more open than the first, and he whipped out his cell phone instead. Both Felix and Siris fell behind, bickering about the likelihood of Felix even being able to help this late at night. Locus took the lead, with confident strides, and Erin caught up to him. Even if he didn’t know where he was going, it was better than listening to the arguing going on behind her.

“You know where we’re going?” Erin asked, half-jokingly.

“Not particularly,” he replied, “but it’s better than taking directions from either Felix or Siris.  _ I _ could have told you the places Siris led us to were likely closed.”

Erin shoved him lightly in the shoulder. “Then why  _ didn’t _ you?”

“Because I didn’t know for certain.” Locus glanced at her. Erin was a tall woman, and there were only a few people who could look her in the eye, but Locus came very close. “Besides, it passes the time.”

“Speaking of passing time,” Erin looked away and down the sidewalk ahead, “what do  _ you _ do when there’s no missions?”

“You assume I have anything to do besides missions.”

“ _ Everyone _ needs a hobby.”

“Then what’s yours?”

“I play instruments.” Erin replied without missing a beat. “Mostly guitar. A few wind instruments. I don’t have any on me at the moment, though, which is a shame. Listening to music isn’t quite the same as creating it yourself.”

Locus hummed in acknowledgement, but it didn’t sound dismissive, like an end to the conversation; rather a curious sound that couldn’t quite be given voice.

“I learned when I was younger.” Erin picked up the conversation again. “I was an angry kid. They thought music would calm me down.”

“Did it?” he asked.

Erin huffed wryly. “Depended on the day. Don’t change the subject. What’s  _ your _ hobby?”

Locus hesitated, like he was about to reply, when Felix called ahead, “Hey! Found a place that’s still open.”

Erin waited to see if Locus would continue despite the interruption, but instead he turned his head to listen to Felix and Siris’ conflicting directions. Finally, a route was settled, and the group picked up their pace.

The ‘place’ that Felix and Siris found was in fact the smallest and most disgusting all-night convenience store Erin had ever seen--and growing up on a frontier colony world, she’d seen her fair share. At the back shelf, however, they found entire shelves of ramen. Felix attempted to pick one whole pallet up before Locus effortlessly lifted it out of his hands. Erin took another, and Siris and Felix carried a third.

“This should keep us in ramen for, what, a few days?” Erin joked.

She hadn’t thought it particularly funny, but it got a chuckle out of Siris, a grin out of Felix, and even the slightest of amused expressions from Locus. The convenience store clerk’s face when they dropped three whole pallets of ramen noodles on his counter was well worth the long walk they took to get there.

On the walk back to their gym, the four joked about the amount of ramen they’d acquired, how long it’d take them to eat their way through it, and the unfairness of the fact Erin and Locus could each carry a pallet on their own, frequently being called show-offs by both Felix and Siris--though Felix did it with far greater frequency--who carried one together.

By the time they made it back, Erin’s watch told her that it was almost 2:30, but nobody went home--they made noodles, a few bowls each, and began to tell stories. Stories about jobs gone awry, particularly memorable setups to acquire bounty targets, and in Erin’s case, stories about missions she undertook with Freelancer. She mentioned no specific names, but it was the first time she’d openly discussed the project with any of them, and it somehow felt...right.

The four sat close enough together that Erin didn’t really think of the word ‘strangers’ when she looked around at all of them. As Felix gestured with a forkful of noodles and Siris leaned back with his prosthetic leg balanced against his opposite knee, she didn’t quite think ‘friends’, either, because that had always been a loaded word for Erin.

She thought, however, that one day, maybe even sooner than she thought, it might be accurate after all.

* * *

It was almost four in the morning when they cleared out.

Siris left first, hoping to make it back home before Megan found out how late it was. Felix yawned and nearly drove into a pole holding up power lines on his way out of the parking lot, so Erin made a note to send him a text making sure he didn’t meet an untimely end on the highway. Locus lingered, messing with his keys for a moment. Erin was waiting for him to leave before walking back to the motel. Tomorrow, they had no training scheduled, so Erin planned to do a little apartment hunting.

Locus muttered something indistinct, and even Erin’s ears couldn’t pick it up. “What was that?” she asked.

“Baking.” he said, like the word was being dragged out of him. “That’s a hobby of mine.”

Erin blinked, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Cool. Does that mean I can expect a homemade cake on my birthday?” her question was only half-serious.

Locus blinked once, slowly. “I’m considering it, only because you didn’t react with disbelief when I told you.”

“No one’s work necessarily defines their hobbies.” Erin said, leaning on one foot. “You wouldn’t think an agent of a covert military project played guitar ballads in her spare time. Who’s to say bounty hunters can’t bake?”

Neither of them spoke for a moment, but the silence was companionable, not awkward. When Locus spoke again, he changed the subject. “You parked around back again?”

“Yep.” the lie was becoming easier. She knew that, eventually, she would have to invest in a car, but that would cut just a  _ little _ too far into Erin’s emergency funds for her liking. At this point, she had to choose between living in a motel and being able to drive. For the moment, her need to get out of the seedy motel was stronger.

“No training tomorrow.” Locus seemed unusually chatty, and for the first time in the past several days, Erin raised her guard. “Doing anything?”

“Looking for a place.” it slipped out before Erin remembered she wasn’t supposed to admit she’d been living in a motel.

A sharp glance. “Where have you  _ been _ staying?”

“Around.” Erin replied dodgily. It shouldn’t be any of their concern what her situation was.

Instead of feeling the wall of icy pragmatism that’d been present since they met spring up again, to take the place of their easy conversation, Locus only remarked, “Siris might help. He knows the city better than us.” he set off for his own car. “I’ll see you next training day.”

Erin was so surprised, pleasantly so, by the simple suggestion instead of the expected pity that she forgot to respond until Locus was already out of earshot, but she walked off down the sidewalk toward the motel she’d called home for the past week and a half.

When she arrived, she pulled her tank top off and tossed it in the chair where her laundry was beginning to accumulate. She’d have to head for a laundromat if she wanted clean clothes for the next training session.

Locus’ tip to ask Siris for possible apartment locations was a good one, and Erin prepared to send off a text suggesting the idea before remembering that it was 4:30 in the morning and he might well already be asleep. She resolved not to set her alarm tomorrow like she’d been doing even when it wasn’t a training day. She’d earned a morning off, she thought. Laying down in bed, Erin rolled over to click the lamp off, plunging the room into darkness, softly lit from outside by the motel lights.

* * *

_ “Help me, Colorado, help me.” _

_ She heard the voice, indistinctly, through the plain darkness of her dreams. No scene arrived to trap her at first, and she relaxed, thinking herself safe, as it happened every time. It was always a mistake she made, a mistake she swore she would not make again, and every time, she was proven wrong. _

_ She was in the  _ Mother of Invention _ ’s corridors, stumbling through them, her leg and chest aching so deeply. She heard the voice again, “Help me, Colorado, help me,” but this time, she recognized the voice. _

_ “CT? Connie?” Erin tried to use her voice, but they couldn’t hear her--they never could. She pleaded for help, again and again. _

_ Then the question turned to, “Why didn’t you save us, Colorado?” _

_ She wasn’t present--or conscious, even--for the event itself, but in her mind’s eye, she was stumbling, crawling, falling into the snow, elbows shaking, in time to watch Maine lift Carolina from the thickly frost-covered ground, tearing the two AI from her implants before throwing her over the edge of the cliff. In her mind’s eye, she saw CT--CT who was right, who Erin didn’t listen to until it was too late and the situation was out of her hands--falling after facing both Carolina and Tex at the Longshore shipyards, bloody and broken. _

_ “No. No! Stop!” Erin screamed, but no one came to help, no one came to stop this. _

_ Even  _ she _ could not stop this. _

_ “Why didn’t you save us, Colorado? How could you leave us behind?” _

She awoke with a wordless scream, shooting up in bed, falling to the floor after freeing her legs from the tangled sheets, stumbling towards the bathroom, where she dry retched for a few moments, failing to bring anything up. She counted backwards from ten as her heart raced, and then back up to ten when it showed no signs of slowing down. Finally, she sat with her back against the bathtub, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her legs, face resting inside her knees, as she tried to breathe and calm her body’s frantic shaking.

She hadn’t had a nightmare so vivid since arriving on Cascade, and even the ones she’d had back at the hospital on Synre hadn’t been as bad as this. Drawing in another deep, shuddering breath, Erin rose to her feet, ignored her quaking knees, and went to sit down on the edge of her bed. Sleep may as well have been out of the question now. Checking her watch, the digits read 7:32 at her. Letting out a sigh, Erin snatched the tank top and jacket she’d tossed in her laundry chair only a few hours before.

She hoped there was a diner nearby.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a moment and say I appreciate the positive response I've gotten posting this so far, almost 100 hits so far, more than I thought it would get--I've been slower on editing these chapters than I wanted to be, but hopefully the next one should be up soon.

Half an hour later, Erin’s hands were curled around a mug of hot coffee liberally treated with cream and sugar-- _ real _ sugar, not the synthesized substitute they kept aboard the ship. Somehow, this simple fact helped ground her again, reminded her that the crashed ship she once called home was millions and millions of miles away, that she was on a world luxurious enough they could get  _ real _ sugar even in their smallest diners. She took a long gulp, despite the fact it was still near-scalding.

Erin wasn’t sure how long she sat there, in that diner booth, but a waitress kept coming by to refill Erin’s coffee when it was empty. It was only when the diner started to fill that she realized the breakfast rush was well on its way. Her watch told her it was a little past 9. An hour and a half, staring into space, drinking coffee. She belatedly wondered just how many cups she drank.

Approaching the bar, wad of cash in her hand, Erin almost sheepishly asked the waitress there how many cups of coffee she was paying for.

The waitress blinked once, twice. “We lost count around five,” she finally admitted.

Erin sighed with relief. “Well, I’ve never drunk more than ten in one sitting, so five doesn’t sound too bad.” Peeling a few bills off from the roll, Erin slapped them on the counter. “Keep the rest as a tip, would you?”

Striding out before the waitress realized Erin left her a thirty-credit tip, Erin headed back to her motel. Something else she could do in order to bring herself back down to earth after a bad nightmare were simple, domestic tasks. She still had laundry that she needed to do.

At the laundromat, while waiting for her washer, rattling and clunking, to finish, Erin thumbed through intercepted bounties, and marked potential targets to run past the group next training session. It’d been a little over a week and a half since the mission that brought Erin to the group, and she thought it was about time for another.

On her way back to the motel, with her clean laundry, Erin made a decision, fueled by excessive caffeine, lack of sleep, and her strong desire to not be alone after a nightmare, weak though it might have been. Picking up her phone, sitting on the dresser, Erin fired off a text to Siris before she could change her mind.

ERN:  _ you busy today? I’m going apartment hunting. locus mentioned you might know a few places? _

* * *

Siris did not, in fact, know a few places off the top of his head, but came by the motel address Erin gave him a half hour later, and offered to help her look.

Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell him not to go to this much trouble, but when she opened her mouth to say it, the expression on Siris’ face stopped her, and she got into the shotgun seat of the sedan without comment. “So, got any ideas on where to go?” she asked.

“You’ve been staying here the past week and a half?”

Erin pursed her lips, already half-regretting her decision. “Yeah. What about it?”

“You could have, you know,  _ said _ something.” Siris pulled out of the motel lot and onto the main road into town.

“What does it matter?” Erin snapped suddenly, but instantly rued her hasty words. It wasn’t their fault her emotional growth had been stunted for the majority of her life. “Sorry.”

“Megan said you might not enjoy this, even if you asked.” Siris remarked, slightly amused. “She’s good at reading people.”

Erin’s gaze shot over to him. “Were you testing me?”

“Maybe a little.” he admitted.

“Well, since I snapped at you, I think we can call it even.” Erin looked out the window at downtown Indara. “So, got any ideas where to go first?”

“Depends on your budget.” Siris replied. “There’s one that’s relatively nice--”

“I don’t need  _ nice _ .” Erin interrupted. “Just livable.”

“Well, I was  _ going _ to say it’s relatively nice, and not very expensive, but since I know now that you’re content with a cardboard box as long as it’s  _ livable _ ...” Siris sounded faintly amused.

Erin huffed. “Yeah, yeah. Go on. Show me around town.”

Since Erin’s only mode of transportation for the moment was her own two legs, she hadn’t seen a great deal of the city. She’d seen the spaceport, and the residential sector where Siris’ home was, the gym they used to spar, the diner, motel, and laundromat, but little else. It wasn’t until Siris took them throughout the high-rise sector of the city that she realized how much more there was.

She knew Indara was a luxurious city when she came here--part of her requirements for the place she intended to flee to from Synre was that it was big, loud, and hard to find her in--but hadn’t fully grasped what that meant. Crowds of people wandered the sidewalks, and Erin subconsciously sunk lower and lower in the passenger seat until Siris looked over.

“Hiding from someone?” he asked easily, as though it was normal to have friends that hid from large groups of people.

“I’m not the best in crowds.” Erin said, making an effort to sit up again.

The first place Siris knew was from when he first came to the city himself. After talking with the complex’s manager for a few minutes, Erin was handed a small pamphlet of floor plans and approximate prices. This was all new territory for her, but Erin did make an effort to calculate monthly payments with her remaining emergency fund. With the smallest possible setup, she could live there on her own funds, unassisted, for almost six months. The group would surely have undertaken more bounties by then.

“This one isn’t bad.” she indicated the smallest one with the end of her pen. “Only issue is distance from the rest of the places I go here in town. It would take me hours to walk--” Erin stopped and buried her face in her hand, realizing her mistake too late.  _ Dammit.  _ This _ is why I never go anywhere after having that much caffeine post-nightmare; I  _ really _ don’t know when to shut up. _

“You’ve been  _ walking _ everywhere?” Siris tried and failed not to sound too incredulous.

“I have two fully-functioning legs and places to be,” this time, Erin didn’t regret her snap, carefully not mentioning her healing right leg, “so yes, I’ve been walking. Why should you  _ care? _ ”

For a moment, Siris didn’t speak, and Erin sullenly stared at the floor between her shoes. “Because we’re partners.” he said finally, more quietly. “And we have to help each other to make this work.”

Erin snorted skeptically and leaned back, balancing one ankle on her knee. “You telling me you did this for Felix and Locus when they first got here? I’m not a charity case.”

“I did, actually.” Siris’ voice had a bit more steel to it that time. “Megan and I both did. Needing help doesn’t make you a charity case.”

Erin thought. She remembered herself at fourteen, an orphaned colony kid whose foster parents inevitably ended up handing her back to the authorities. She remembered herself at sixteen, shorn hair and anger in every broken line of her face, as she used a false identity to join up with Freelancer. She remembered the first time the Director threatened a demotion for lone-wolf behavior on missions, and he’d told her, scathingly “You have a team for a reason, Agent.” And she’d come to learn that she did. She’d let them in, and they’d been a shining replacement for the dysfunctional family she’d lost.

Then, she remembered six short weeks ago, when the ship that team called home crashed in an all-out battle between its members. Family fighting family. She wouldn’t risk that again. She  _ couldn’t _ .

Siris seemed content to wait for Erin to think through it, and she finally said, “People don’t help unless they want something.” She looked up, scowled. “In this world, if you want something, you make it happen yourself. You don’t rely on  _ anyone _ but yourself.”

“So, what?” Siris leaned forward on his knees. “Your plan is to go it alone for the rest of your life?”

“If I have to, yes.” she replied, stiffly. Desperate to change the subject, Erin pulled out her datapad and said, “Look, I took a few glances through new bounties. Found a fairly simple one with good details, and the payout won’t be bad even between four of us. What do you think?”

Siris looked half like he wanted to continue the previous conversation, but wisely dropped it, for now. Erin didn’t think she’d heard the last of it, and worked her jaw with frustration. She could watch her partners’ backs, and have them return the favor, without getting  _ attached _ , or vice versa. Now she was  _ definitely _ regretting her impulsive decision to do this. Siris took her datapad and looked at the short list of bounties she’d marked as possibilities. “Let’s get the group together tonight, and we’ll decide on a target.”

“Sounds good.” Erin rose to her feet.

“Why don’t I give you a ride?” Siris asked the question casually, but there was a set to his jaw that told Erin it wasn’t a suggestion. She normally balked at being ordered around, but she’d pushed her luck pretty far today, and it  _ was _ kind of a long way to walk.

She shrugged. “Fine.”

Instead of dropping her back at the motel, though, Siris returned to his home instead, pulling out his phone to, presumably, send a few messages to Felix and Locus. “They can meet us here.” he said by way of explanation, and Erin pursed her lips. That meant she’d have to stay here until everyone got together to talk business.

Megan came around the corner to the entry hallway when the front door closed and her face lit up. “Erin! Glad to see you haven’t been scared off yet.”

Despite herself, Erin summoned a smile. “I’ve got a pretty tough constitution.”

After greeting Siris as well, they sat in the living room. Erin prayed for no more sprung leaks. Her stitches were healing well, and soon she’d have to get a doctor to take them out, so she doubted there’d be another mishap like the one a week and a half ago. “What did you two get up to today?” Megan asked.

“Ah, nothing much interesting.” Erin told the truth, but refrained from adding any details about the volatile discussion she and Siris had.

Of course, Siris immediately threw her to the wolves. “She’s been living in a motel and walking everywhere for the past week and a half.”

“Hey!” Erin felt her anger spike. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

“Erin.” the gentle, worried look Megan had nearly made Erin get up and walk right out of the house. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Erin raked her fingers through her hair and focused on a whorl in the wood flooring, gathering her thoughts, trying to refrain from saying anything she’d regret later. She looked up, and when she spoke, her voice was tight, almost painfully controlled. “Because I had everything under control. I was going to buy other necessities after a few more successful bounties. I didn’t need help.” she grated the last sentence out through her teeth, lip curved downward sharply in something that was almost a snarl.

“We, uh, interrupting something?”

Erin never thought she’d be so glad to see Felix and Locus hovering in the doorway. “No.” she quickly smoothed her voice and expression back down to normal and leaned back. “Nothing at all.”

They both hesitated, as though unsure if Erin was telling the truth. Siris took up the conversation, steering them towards business. “Erin found a few possible bounties. I thought we could get together and see if there’s any we can go after and not draw too much attention.”

“Sounds good.” Felix flopped on the couch across from Siris and perpendicular to Erin. Locus took the seat next to Siris.

Then, it was all business, and the awkwardness from the rest of the day melted off. Erin and Siris conversed like normal, and they agreed to undertake the job that night. Siris’ place had enough spare rooms for two guests, and Erin flatly declined needing sleep, not mentioning the re-emergence of her vivid nightmares. She had no desire to wake up screaming in someone else’s house. Siris and Megan exchanged a glance, but didn’t comment for the moment.

They ordered pizza in for dinner, after a lengthy argument about what kind to get. Finally, they ended up ordering two pepperoni, one double cheese, and one supreme. Felix claimed to be able to eat an entire pizza on his own. Erin wagered the price of the pizza that he couldn’t. In the end, Erin won the bet when Felix groaned, the last slice of pizza in his hand, and conceded defeat. Pocketing the ten credits she could put towards another pizza later, the group had almost a friendly atmosphere again, something that reminded Erin of the night before.

Eventually, they split off to sleep in preparation for the nighttime bounty they planned to complete soon. Erin was the only one left awake, but before Siris left, she asked for a notepad and pen. These things were handed to her, then he too went to sleep.

Erin sat on the same couch, the pen tucked behind her ear, as she began to calculate approximate equipment costs for the past few jobs using the records Siris kept from before her arrival to the city. There was no way to know for certain how much they’d use today, if any, but Erin could make a fairly good guess, and began to organize bullets and equipment by cost in a table. Time passed without her knowledge, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when she spotted Locus out of the corner of one eye.

“What are you doing up?” she asked when her breathing returned to normal.

“Couldn’t sleep.” he said, sitting down on the couch across from Erin. “What are you doing?”

“Working out possible equipment costs from recent jobs.” Erin pulled the pen from behind her ear and nibbled on the end of it, a bad habit she never broke. “No way to know for sure how much we’ll have to use tonight, though. Best to prepare for the worst, though.”

“Have you slept?”

An odd question, considering the mission was much more pressing. Slowly, Erin set the pen down on the coffee table. “No,” she replied carefully, “I don’t like sleeping in strange places.”

“Like motels?” he asked the question mildly, with a straight face, but Erin felt her ire rise.

“It’s none of  _ anyone’s _ business what my living situation is.” she didn’t have it in her right now to snap, but she ground her jaw together. “Leave my business to me, got it?”

He didn’t make any kind of noise to assent he understood, but he also didn’t pursue the subject, so Erin called it a win. About a half hour later--Erin checked her watch, a little past two in the morning.--Siris and Felix got up. Felix looked a lot more lively than normal, and Erin wondered if he even slept, himself.

“This should be a basic street grab,” Siris pulled up a small map of the nearby residential district on a datapad and highlighted a single section of it, “since, from this area, the footpaths back to the residential neighborhood create something of a bottleneck.”

“So then we just gotta grab him from wherever the paths cross, yeah?” Felix yawned and stretched where he sat, and Erin followed the roads with her eyes, spotting where they narrowed into only a few paths, most of which within sight of each other.

_ Still... _

“Someone should wait with the car, in case he gets spooked.” Erin spoke up, tapping the area where the major footpaths intersected. “Might be a low chance, but it’s still a chance. Better to have someone on standby who can run him down in something faster than your legs.”

“Great, thanks for volunteering.” Felix sat forward again, elbows on knees, and Erin shrugged.

“Fine by me, as long as I’m getting paid.” Erin jerked her head in the direction of the door. “Just don’t get up to too much trouble without me.”

* * *

Siris had been a mercenary for a long, long time. Even before that, he had been a soldier, and others’ lives had rested on his decisions, much like they did now--the stakes had been simultaneously raised and lowered, in different ways, but the urge to safeguard others, those who were most important, had never faded.

Erin was an unknown, for the most part. A wild card they had yet to define. They knew so little about her, but everything they’d heard pointed to  _ trouble _ .

Megan would joke that Siris seemed to attract those types, but joke or not, there was some truth to it.

The trio took up position near a sidewalk corner, nonchalantly leaning against a wooden fence. Felix spoke before Siris got the chance. “So what the hell were you arguing about when we came in? Something about someone needing help?”

Siris sighed. “Erin. Erin needs help. That’s the problem. She’s convinced she doesn’t.”

“Then, and hear me out here, maybe she  _ doesn’t _ .” Felix said. “Besides, it’s not like she can’t take care of herself. It’s not really our business where she’s staying or how she gets there as long as she’s pulling her weight, you know?”

“She’s a partner, but that means we have to trust her, too.” Locus admitted slowly. “We have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

“You didn’t hear what we talked about today.” Siris insisted. “She’s convinced she needs to do everything alone, because everyone’s going to want something in return for help.”

Felix tapped his lower lip. “Honestly, not a stupid policy to have. But, there’s probably a reason she has it.”

“We can’t force her to do anything.” Locus pointed out in return. “Something tells me she’ll only get more stubborn about not doing it otherwise. We’d have to wait for her to ask.”

“The problem is that she  _ won’t _ .” Siris felt frustration rise up.

“We don’t know that.” Locus reasoned. “Not for certain. We’ve only known her a short while. We have to give her time.”

Siris considered it as they moved on their target, quickly subduing him, tying his wrists and ankles, and carrying him back to the sedan, Erin behind the steering wheel, staring into space. She refocused when they rapped on the window for her to open the trunk, and when they all piled into the car, she asked, “How did it go?”

“Went off without a hitch, as usual.” Felix replied breezily, taking the shotgun seat again, turning the volume on the radio up. For a brief time, while Erin cruised down residential streets on their way to the city proper, no one spoke, listening to music. A song came on then, that Erin hadn’t heard in years. She began to drum her fingers on the steering wheel in time with the rhythm, humming along with the words before she softly began to sing.

It was an old song, and Felix had been about to reach over and switch the radio before hearing the sound of outside singing. He drew his hand back a fraction, and everyone else in the car focused their attention on Erin’s soft singing voice, rising with the climax of the song, and falling back down to a low hum as the final chords faded away.

Erin only realized no one said anything while she’d sung until the song was long over, and she cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uh. Sorry. That was the first song I learned how to play.”

“You play?” Felix asked, and Locus blinked his eyes open in the backseat, paying more attention to the conversation going on.

“Yep.” Erin still looked uncomfortable, but pushed through it. Her next sentence was more confident. “Mostly guitar. A few wind instruments.”

“You still don’t have any here?” Locus asked, leaning forward slightly.

Erin sighed. “No. Got more important things to spend money on right now. When I’ve got my own place, got my own car, got some disposable cash, and take care of a few other things,  _ then _ I’ll see about getting another collection of musical instruments together.”

Felix threw a surreptitious glance in the backseat, and Siris and Locus exchanged a look, as well. Maybe it wasn’t their business how she took care of herself, but there was nothing saying they couldn’t pitch some money together and find an instrument for her. Knowing what they knew about Erin already, she might assume they wanted something in return and get even more suspicious, but it was worth a try.

“What kind of guitar?” Felix asked casually, leaning back in the shotgun seat.

“If you lean that seat back, I will  _ not _ be happy.” Locus muttered from behind Felix’s seat.

“Okay, children.” Erin teased from the driver’s seat. “Don’t make me turn this car around. My old one was a Castor. I had to leave it behind, though. Took only the necessities from Synre.”

Felix made a noncommittal sound, staring out the window.

The rest of their drive into town was quiet and uneventful, their bounty was turned in, and Erin took the sedan back to Siris’. “You could drive it back to your place.” he said, already having an idea how she’d answer, but offering anyway.

“Nice of you,” Erin replied evenly, “but I think the walk will do me good.”

Siris didn’t press the issue, for which Erin was grateful. She got out of the driver’s side, tossed the keys to Siris, and walked off down the sidewalk. When she was out of sight, he asked his other two partners, absently, “Did she sleep last night, at all?”

“She was awake when I woke up.” Locus checked his watch, which told him the time was around 4 in the morning. “That means she’s been awake for almost 24 hours.”

“Let her go, Wu.” Felix said, exasperated, when Siris made a move to get back in the car. “If she wants our help, she’ll  _ ask _ for it. Jesus.”

Reluctantly, Siris agreed, and stepped back. “Then I guess all we can do now is wait.”

* * *

For the next month, things proceeded in a routine fashion. Erin continued her search for an apartment and car, helping Siris, Felix, and Locus with their jobs in the meantime. She was earning more money, but not quite as much as she would have liked to be making. Her emergency funds were running low since the motel’s manager jacked his rates up on her without warning. At this point, an apartment would have been cheaper even with utilities, but she was no closer to a solution.

She was happy that Siris had stopped bringing up her need for help, at least, and that even Megan chose not to talk about it, though she always looked concerned when Erin showed up at their house to plan bounty missions. She also continued her training with the trio, and eventually, Felix asked her for more one-on-one sparring. He claimed she was more fun to fight than their other partners, and frankly, learning Felix’s fighting style made Erin feel more prepared for other fighting styles she may not have seen yet.

Occasionally, after late-night training sessions at the gym, she and Locus went out to get coffee and just talk business. They discussed the differences between old versions of new weapons, lamented that the classic implements had been lost in favor of new technology, and Erin mentioned being envious of her old comrades’ marksmanship skills.

Locus had stopped with his mug halfway up, and set it down. “I could show you a few things,” he’d said, carefully.

It was the first time any of them had directly offered to help her in the past month, since the disastrous clash she’d had with Siris.  _ This is different, though _ , she told herself. She was getting help to learn how to do her job better. He’d acknowledged in one sentence that she already had some skill with it, but that there were some things he could show her, which was undeniably true.

Taking another drink of her coffee, Erin had replied, simply, easily, “I’d like that.”

* * *

Erin encountered a problem a month and a half after first arriving in Cascade.

Her efforts to find an apartment within acceptable walking distance of everywhere else she needed to go was proving near-fruitless (even the first place Siris showed her hadn’t worked out; it was just too far away) and the motel she’d been staying in had been bought out; it would also be changing hands. No underhanded deals with the motel’s manager meant no more long-term room, and with the way he’d raised prices on her, she wasn’t sure she’d call it much of a deal anymore, anyway.

One night, far past the moon’s height, Erin sat up in bed, a pen behind her ear with noticeable chew-marks in the end, and tallied her finances. Even with the money she’d pulled in with recent bounties, she was running perilously low. Doing some math, if she got into an apartment by the end of the week, and got a car shortly after, she would have enough money for two months’ rent, just barely, and that didn’t even include furniture. She’d continue to earn income from bounties, of course, but she always planned for the worst.

And right this moment, things were getting close to Erin’s worst predictions.

Biting her lip, Erin regarded her cell phone, sitting on the dresser across the room, and made a choice. Today wasn’t going to be a training day, but Erin wasn’t planning on sleeping in. She’d barely gotten four hours of sleep every night since her last vivid nightmare a week ago. It was starting to take its toll on her--the dark smudges under her eyes were back in full force, and her pallor was starting to get more noticeable, but she’d had worse.

Waiting for the sun to rise saw Erin arguing with herself back and forth, talking herself in and out of this idea. When the watch on her wrist told her it was 9:30, Erin hauled herself out of bed and picked up her phone, sending a message to Siris before she lost her nerve. She was reminded of a similar situation from over a month prior, and chewed her lower lip nervously. She would  _ not _ back out this time.

ERN:  _ hey, can we talk? _

SI:  _ Everything ok? _

ERN:  _ meet me for coffee. my treat. half an hour? _

At the diner where Erin had rapidly become a regular, she sat and waited, a mug of coffee in front of her, saturated as usual with cream and sugar. Siris wasn’t here yet, but Erin already ordered his coffee, since he always took it the same way--black, two creams.

A few moments later, Siris swept inside, glancing until he found Erin, striding over quickly. “What’s going on?” he asked, almost breathless, as though he’d driven here as fast as possible.

Erin leaned back, eyebrows raised slightly in faint surprise. “Relax, Siris, it’s not an emergency...well, not yet, at least. Just...sit down, would you? I got your coffee.”

Siris sat, picked up the mug. “You know how I take coffee?”

Erin lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Watch long enough and pay enough attention, you learn how anyone takes their coffee. You take yours black with two creams. Felix only ever orders his from that designer coffee shop, a large ultra-dark-chip deluxe cafe with extra caramel and whipped cream. Locus takes his completely black with one flattened spoonful of sugar. Not a heaping spoonful.” Erin took a drink of her own coffee as she finished.

Siris drank some of his coffee, too, then set the mug down. “So, what’s going on?”

Erin slowly set her mug down as well, laced her fingers together atop the table, refusing to meet his eyes at first. “I still haven’t found a place. This ordinarily wouldn’t be a big deal, but the manager I’ve been paying under the table was bought out--plus he hiked the rate up on me, the jackass. I’m running out of emergency funds. I did some calculations last night and figured that if I get into a place by the end of the week, I’ll have enough for two months’ rent, and enough to buy a serviceable car. But...” Erin looked down even further, “...with the luck I’m having, I won’t be able to do that on my own.

“So,” Erin finished, in almost a whisper, but she forced herself to look up, “I need help. I  _ hate _ asking, especially after what happened a month ago, but I’m out of options.”

Siris paused, blinked twice, and sighed. Erin felt her gut twist. He drank back the rest of his coffee, laced his fingers on the table, and said, “I wish you’d said something before it got to this point...” Erin tried not to flinch back and didn’t fully succeed, but waited to interrupt, “...so I suppose time is of the essence.”

Erin blinked. “Wait, what?”

“We have until the end of the week, right?” Siris was already getting up, and Erin rushed to dump the rest of her coffee down her throat before following. “That means we need to get started. We need to get Locus and Felix involved, too. The more people out there looking, the greater chance we’ll find something. Got a monthly budget in mind? A layout?”

“Uh.” Erin’s brain tried to rapidly recalculate her planned responses to Siris telling her she was on her own. “About 450 a month including utilities. Any more than that and I can’t afford a car. I don’t need any spare bedrooms, I could even take a studio or economic apartment, really.”

Siris nodded and pulled out his phone while Erin darted back to the motel to grab her jacket. By the time she got back, he reported, “Locus is on board. Still trying to reach Felix.”

“Then I assume you have at least a vague plan.” Erin slipped into the passenger seat of Siris’ sedan, checked her phone’s clock, and clicked the seatbelt in.

“I have a few more ideas.” Siris headed out. “Locus said he knew a few places, too. Felix still isn’t answering the phone.”

Erin shrugged. “I’ve got a better chance right now than I have in days. If Felix can’t be bothered to pick up the phone--oh, hang on.” Erin’s phone buzzed, with an incoming call from Felix. “It’s him. Hey,” she said, answering the call, “what is it?”

“You tell me,” Felix replied, sounding like he’d just dragged himself out of bed, “because I have three missed calls from Siris, and I need to know if it’s because he found out I’ve been getting into the gym by climbing in the window to mess with the obstacle course. Or if he found out I’ve been sneaking some of the ramen back to my place.”

“What? No, it’s not that.” Erin stretched her legs. “I need help.”

A long, loud yawn. “Does it involve getting out of bed?”

Erin scowled, and her voice was hard. “Yeah, it does, asshole.”

He paused. “Holy shit, you’re serious. Like, you’re  _ actually _ asking for help.”

“Well, not anymore, I’m not.” Erin irritably began to move the phone away from her ear before Felix said something she didn’t quite catch. “What?”

“I  _ said _ , what’s going on?  _ Fuck _ .”

“You sure you can find it in your heart to drag yourself out of bed?” Erin fell back into their usual rhythm of giving the other grief for just about everything. It was starting to become familiar, which helped and hurt in equal measure, and a grin tugged at her lips. “Or am I interrupting your beauty sleep?”

“Hey, I never said shit about it being ‘beauty sleep’,” Erin heard rustling and assumed Felix was up and moving, “now what the hell is going on?”

“I’m looking for a place.” Erin said, and quickly outlined what she told Siris: her failing financial situation, the motel she’d been staying in getting bought out, and her deadline to find a place by the end of the week.

“Well, lucky for you, I’m going to have the best ideas.” Felix stated when Erin finished her tale. “So I’ll text you when I find one.”

“Yeah. Great.” Erin was about to hang up when she remembered one of the things Felix suspected Siris was calling for. “Hey, wait, have you  _ really _ been taking some of the gym ramen home and messing with the obstacle course?”

“Sorry, gotta go find you an apartment!” Felix replied in a sing-song voice, cutting off the call before Erin could even start to yell. It didn’t stop an outburst, though.

“You  _ asshole! _ ”

* * *

The rest of the morning and early afternoon was a flurry of driving to different apartment locations, receiving texts or calls from Felix and Locus with new locations, touring buildings, and finding things that broke potentially good deals. Erin began to lose patience with the whole ordeal, but Siris calmly told her there had to be  _ something _ in this city that she could both afford and that fit her standards.

After the eighth suggestion, Erin slid into the passenger seat of Siris’ sedan, buried her face in one hand, and made a wordless sound of frustration.

“Erin.” Siris said; she could tell he was trying to suppress his amusement, “You didn’t think this would be easy, did you?”

She shot him a glare from over her hands and replied, “We’ve spent nearly six hours driving back and forth across this city, and we’re no closer to a solution. You’ll have to understand if I’m not exactly feeling very optimistic.”

“Maybe it’s time for a break?” Siris suggested. “Get some lunch?”

Erin shook her head. “Apartment offices usually aren’t open later than 5 or 6. If we’re going to find anything else today, we have to get in as many as we can.”

“We have until the end of the week, right?” Siris pointed out. When Erin reluctantly nodded, he said, “Then we’ll try again tomorrow if necessary.”

Erin sighed and was about to agree when her phone buzzed with an incoming call. Not even bothering to check who it was, she swiped the answering key. “Yeah, what is it?”

“I’ve got one more.” Locus’ voice surprised Erin. Usually he sent short, concise messages with the addresses. “It’s at 1034 Red Oak.”

“Good. Great. What’s going on, though? Why call?” Erin quickly relayed the address to Siris, sensing the urgency in the call, and he set off at a brisk pace.

“Because it fits about all the criteria you set, within your price range, but the apartment manager tells me he’s got someone else interested in it, too.” Locus responded. “If you get here first, he’s willing to show it to you instead.”

“Got it. We’re on our way.” Erin leaned back in her seat and hung up. “We’ve got to hurry. Lo says there’s someone else on their way to see the apartment too.”

“All right.” Siris cast a small, interested, faintly amused glance at her. “Did you call Locus ‘Lo’ just now?”

“What? No.” Erin felt a burn in her lower neck. “I said the full code-name.”

“If you say so.”

On their drive over, Erin stared out the window, contemplating what might happen if this was successful. This would be her first place, the first place she could call her own, well,  _ ever _ . She didn’t think the room she shared with CT aboard the  _ Mother of Invention _ counted.

When they arrived, Erin picked up her usual walking pace to a quick jog, and emerged into the front office to see Locus, pacing a few steps. He looked up as they arrived, and turned to the person Erin assumed had to be the apartment manager. “This is the person I was talking about.” he said. He looked a trifle uncomfortable having to discuss this directly, but his words were steady. “Erin, this is Gregory Marshall. He manages this complex.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Erin shook the apartment manager’s hand. He looked exhausted, with slightly-rumpled brown hair that made Erin think he’d just gotten out of bed, himself. His shirt was skewed across his shoulders, but his handshake was strong, and it put Erin’s mind at a bit more ease. “I hear you have a place that fits my criteria.”

Mr. Marshall pulled a basic datapad, nothing like Erin’s military-grade model, off a shelf, and scrolled until he found what he wanted. Handing it over to Erin, she saw a basic floor-plan. One bedroom, one bath, a basic living room and kitchen, all the amenities Erin would expect. Even better was the price per month: 400 credits, including utilities. Erin’s eyes widened slightly. This was almost too good to be true. “That’s the floor idea.” Mr. Marshall informed her. “What do you think?”

“I think it looks perfect. Also within my price range.” Erin handed the datapad back. “How can I get the wheels rolling here?”

Mr. Marshall hesitated. “There’s one other thing.”

Erin leaned her head to the side. “Well?”

“Most of our apartments come fully-furnished with basic fittings.” Mr. Marshall said slowly, awkwardly. “But how we keep the price low on single-bedroom places is by...not fitting them.”

“So what you mean to tell me is that I can get this place for that price, but I’ll have no furniture inside of it?” Erin raised one brow.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

Erin sighed. “Well, it’s a better chance than I had at the beginning of the day. Where do I sign?”

Mr. Marshall looked taken aback. “Wait...you’re still interested?”

“Damn right.” Erin folded her arms. “I’m sure I can scare up some furniture. Can I move in tonight? I’m pretty quiet, don’t have much to move.”

Mr. Marshall hesitated once more. Erin braced for the bad news sure to come. “The person currently living there hasn’t reached their move-out day yet. They’re due to leave by the end of this week.”

“What’s today, Monday? What day are we talking?” Erin didn’t think hanging out at the sparring gym for a few days was a  _ great _ idea, but she’d do it to get out of that motel before it closed in preparation for new management. “Wednesday? Thursday?”

A beat of silence. “Saturday.”

“Saturday?” both Siris and Locus said, in near-unison, both surprised.

Erin set her jaw. If the current tenants weren’t set to leave until Saturday, that didn’t even guarantee they’d be gone until evening. She might not even be able to get in until Sunday. “Fine. I can work with that.”

She could almost  _ see _ Mr. Marshall sag with relief. Locus turned to her even before he was fully out of earshot. “I...didn’t know about the timeframe for moving in.”

“It’s fine.” Erin rubbed her face in one hand. “A few days at the sparring gym aren’t ideal, but it won’t kill me.”

“Well, I think there’s a fairly obvious solution.” Felix’s voice made all three mercenaries turn, and Erin wondered how long he’d been languishing in the doorway. “Locus lives kinda close by. You could crash there until moving day. Better than a gym cot, at least.”

Erin saw Locus throw Felix a sharp glare, which Felix responded to with a winning grin. “That would be fine,” Erin said slowly, looking between them, “but I’m not sure you can put someone else’s place up for grabs.”

“It’s fine.” Locus rubbed his face with one hand. “I have enough space, and it’s the easiest solution.”

“Great!” Felix clapped once. “So can we all go home now?”


End file.
